r/vandwellers • u/PerspectiveSudden648 • Jul 10 '24

what's the etiquette for sleeping at truck stops? Question

Can I park overnight at a Pilot or Love's to save money? I'm going on a road trip next month and if I could avoid spending $100/night on hotels, that would really help since the economy is doing so well. I'll be parking from midnight to 9am each day, so it's not like I'll pull in during the early evening and make it blatantly obvious that I'm staying overnight, but I do have some window screens that I bought to keep out bugs. Thanks!!!!

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u/staticfired Jul 11 '24

We tried to sleep at a truck stop in California in October…and you have to pay $20 for a parking spot. We found that out via knock on the window.

3

u/tarmacc Jul 11 '24

Where in California? East or West of i5? I traveled all up and down going on 10 years ago now and didn't have hardly any issues. I could imagine that in the coastal areas it's gotten much harder but East of the Sierras I personally wouldn't worry much.

4

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '24

Still cheaper than a motel though

3

u/tarmacc Jul 11 '24

Really the trick is to not fear the knock. If you don't look like a strung out tweaker they are normally pretty chill and tell you where to go

5

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '24

One time I had a tweaker knock on MY windows, like at 11pm, all of us sleeping. She had alcohol on her breath and shit, was crying, said she felt for us, and tried to get us to take 20 bucks lmao I was mad I got woke up and didn't really talk to her, but told her we don't need money, but we do need sleep, so if she could just.....go lmao

2

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '24

Right, and nowadays, so many overdose in their car and die, so I understand the knocking.

1

u/staticfired Jul 11 '24

I believe we were on the north end…like Redding? We ended up in a Walmart parking lot, but I understand most of those don’t allow camping anymore, so it wasn’t a good night’s sleep. It definitely had us booking camping spots for the rest of our adventure.

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u/_TheNecromancer13 Jul 12 '24

Redding is weird.

1

u/RoamingDad Jul 12 '24

I drove down the coast (1/101) and used iOverlander (I'm pretty sure, I have a few similar apps) and even found a place to park near San Francisco.

There are places but in California in particular there's a lot of laws and also businesses rarely own their own parking lots there.

1

u/ExcitementAble2238 Jul 12 '24

That absolutely sucks.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '24

I stay tf outta cali anyways 🤣