These Are the Longest Stretches of U.S. Highway Without a Single Rest Stop
You'll definitely want to pack snacks.
A core memory of mine was formed during a summer roadtrip when I was just seven or eight years old. My brother and I were nestled in the back seat, undoubtedly trying to exact the greatest amount of damage on each other with our respective toys, when my mother announced that we were about to pass a rest area, and we should tell her if we needed to go—it would be the last bathroom we would pass for a while. In classic kid fashion we swore we didn’t have to, and then spent the next two hours whining and pleading until we finally came across another rest stop.
This sort of urinary hubris doesn’t fade as we get older, making rest stop signs one of the most coveted sights on any road trip. Not all journeys are created equal, however, and across the United States there are varying distances you’ll have to ‘hold it’ depending on which interstate you’re traveling on. The company QS Supplies did us all a favor by researching and mapping out the distances between rest stops across the US interstate highway system.
The study found that I-49 has the longest distance between rest stops. The 528-mile highway has only two rest stops, at an average of 264 miles between each facility. But perhaps more extreme is I-22, which is a nearly 203-mile stretch of road that doesn’t come with a single rest stop. Definitely don’t drink any Red Bulls on those roads or you’ll be popping a squat in a huddle of hot dusty bushes.
Check out the rest of the findings below:
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