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Topic ClosedOvernight rest stops at Loves

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podwerkz View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Topic: Overnight rest stops at Loves
    Posted: 08 Mar 2021 at 8:38pm
Motels/Hotels are one of my least favorites places to be....besides noises and loud or rude neighbors, things happen such as faulty A/C or heat at 3 in the morning, cold showers in the morning, pipes banging, lovers next door banging, phones randomly ringing, (sometimes its a lady of the night) cockroaches, bedbugs(!), maids knocking at 6 am, and my all time personal favorite, when Habib Patel saved my credit card number for his own use 2 weeks later and it took me 4 months to straighten that one out.

Before you say yeah, picking the lousy cheap places....NOPE. This kinda crap happens even at LaQuinta and Motel 6 and Motel 8, Amerisuites, Hampton Inn, Americas Best Value Inn, Holiday Inn Express etc etc etc....

If  you only stay in motels a few times a year, chances are you won't have bad luck....but I used to stay in about 300 motel rooms a year, for over 5 years, early in my career, and I have learned to HATE the experience.

I pull my bed around behind me for a reason!  Just sayin....Wink


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StephenH View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Mar 2021 at 9:58pm
+1
Not a fan of motels. Our younger daughter wound up bringing bedbugs home from a motel stay once (to her house, not ours). I much prefer to sleep in our own bed. I also do not rest well in unfamiliar places, so I don't sleep well in motels.
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pedwards2932 View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Mar 2021 at 10:39pm
My thought is my short stops are just to get sleep before moving on.  Also I can drive much further if the stop off is just to sleep with no disconnect from TV or set up and no reservations required.  When I go to a campground then I want to get to them early enough enjoy the location and amenities.  We stay at least 2 days or more at the campgrounds to do some exploring. 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2021 at 2:43am
Everyone has their personal preferences and dislikes based on experiences. I too have done lots of business traveling, much more than I care to even remember, and have been in motels and hotels I didn’t like. But I’ve stayed in campgrounds that are worse for dirt, noise, crowding and rude neighbors. From my travels I have taken away an aversion to commercial airports and airline travel but not hotels. You couldn’t get me to go somewhere that required airline travel for recreational purposes.

It’s quite easy now to identify hotels and campgrounds to stay away from as we have the internet available. Trip Advisor is quite good for example. And if you want to explore some urban amenities like museums or galleries on your travels campgrounds can be pretty inconvenient.

In any case, I was just pointing out that there is an alternative if rest stops, truck stops, Wally Worlds, Cracker Barrels, etc don’t appeal. There is no right or wrong answer here. We have small enough trailers (well, maybe not the new really big rpods) that we can stay in hotels and motels if we choose to. If that doesn’t work for you then that’s ok too. Just sayin’ it’s worked out very well for us, especially my wife who enjoys camping but not for weeks in end, she wants a nice hot bath, more space, and a good restaurant meal once in awhile.
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lostagain View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2021 at 9:10am
Having a nice hot shower was one of the reasons we went to a full bath trailer.  Though it ain't like sitting in a dual wide jacuzzi tub with jets blasting away on your tired body, the showers in the full bath trailers provide adequate water and space to have a decent, but quick shower.  We just returned from the SF Bay Area where I was helping my son remodel his kitchen.  The shower was perfect for getting cleaned up afterward. 

The place where we stayed was well within commuting range of all the Bay Area points of interest and the cost was way, way less than any hotel or motel where we could have stayed.  It's also nice to have a bed and pillows you are used to and to have your own cooties instead of some strangers.  

But all that being said, as OG suggested, it's really a matter of personal preference.
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offgrid View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2021 at 2:20pm
My wife much prefers baths to showers, doesn’t matter the size of the shower, it’s still a shower. Personally if I get my 2 minute daily wet bath shower I’m fine. She can go a week or so but at around 5-6 days she will say she’s ready for a break from camping and cooking, which means a decent motel or hotel, a nice hot bath, followed by a restaurant meal of some interesting cuisine that we don’t cook at home and isn’t typically available right on the interstate. And washing clothes is much nicer at a motel than at your typical laundromat, where if you leave for 5 minutes your clothes might not be there when you get back. So that is our usual cycle, 5-6 nights at a remote campsite, a night in town, resupply, dump and refill tanks, swap empty propane tank if needed, wash clothes, then on to the next campsite. Rpods are very good for that cycle.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2021 at 3:05pm
The internet availability and apps/forums/websites all built around travel, it is so much easier to find what you require as you travel through.

We do, every 5th - 7th day hit a spot that has Laundry and nice showers. Sometimes it's a campground (state or national) with good showers near a town with good laundry. Just us as we travel.Yet, on the road to a spot, I still had inland and look for a spot in-the-woods. Most times this is a county/state/federal owner land fairly close to the (or along) the route we travel. Now with even more sources available, a new friends land. 

I've come to know many folks that travel now. I find there's not much reason any longer to stay amongst the semi's.. unless you choose to. A few states we traveled through had great rest area sites, I mean awesome, just for the traveler. Alast those are currently shut down and post 'No Overnight Parking'. Hopefully they do come back.. Yet still, a few miles inland there's something if you research a bit. So much info out there if you look.

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pedwards2932 View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2021 at 5:01pm
We had found a really nice rest area in NC....had a small pond and picnic tables and plenty of room to park but alas they didn't allow overnight parking.  I swear it seemed like some folks were doing camping out during the day there......maybe then they drive at night?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2021 at 6:21pm
I've used Boondocker's Welcome a lot on my trips from Florida to Maine. There's a small annual fee and then the stop is usually free (sometimes a small fee if they offer electricity/water and you use it). They now have a terrific new app.

Before COVID I met lots of nice folks but there's lots of communication with hosts so last year I was able to discuss in advance my social distancing practices (I was being very strict going home to see my very elderly mom). Especially as I do lots of my traveling by myself and have to walk my dog outside my camper, I've found this more comfortable than Walmart etc.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2021 at 7:36pm
Yep I'm a host on Boondockers Welcome....I've met some interesting people!
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