There are overnight RV parking spots at Ohio Turnpike rest stops. Here's the problem with them.

We had over 450 miles of driving to get us from Niagara NY to Indiana, where our RV would undergo some repairs. We decided to break up the drive by spending a weekend in Ohio and chose a lovely Boondockers Welcome property. Campground availability was scarce in the area, and we needed electric hookups (or so we thought at the time). As RV newbies who hadn't yet camped in Ohio, what we didn't know was that there was another option for overnight parking, with all the facilities an RVer could need: electric hookups, a dump and fillable water station, convenience to the interstate, and even a place to get food and use the restroom. We're talking overnight RV parking spots at select Ohio Turnpike service plazas. As we left our Boondockers Welcome site and continued west, we were intrigued by these RV spots. Evidently this was something the state of Ohio started adding to some of their rest stops about 10 years ago.

Rest stops can be really hit-or-miss, especially when it comes to overnight parking. Many prohibit it in the first place, but if overnight parking is allowed, RVers are often bunking up with the truck drivers. This means being surrounded by giant semis with their noisy generators running at all hours. The areas also have no hookups, so unless you're equipped to boondock in a parking lot, you're out of luck.

The Ohio Turnpike RV areas looked great at first glance, when we made a quick pit stop at the Blue Heron Westbound plaza. There were plenty of pull-through spots, each with a pedestal for electric, and the potable water and dump station were near the exit of the RV lot. The turnpike website says that RV spots are for 40ft maximum, but we squeezed into the spot with just a little overhang. We discussed that if we ever stayed overnight in one of those spots, we'd need to make sure we angled our truck so it was inside the spot as much as possible.

The rest stops have a kiosk where you pay $20 to park overnight. Once you park, you simply pay at the kiosk and then place the ticket on your dashboard. While the spots may not be the quietest, the convenience of being literally right on the interstate can't be beat when you're trying to make a dent in your miles. Anthony and I were happy to discover this option for overnighting, giving us peace-of-mind that we had more opportunities for convenient parking on our journeys through Ohio. Perhaps we would stop at one of these sites on our way back from Indiana.

Once our repairs were complete and we were back on the road, we decided to follow through with that plan. We'd make as much headway as we could before sundown, and then we'd pull off at a rest stop for the night. But before we were ready to hunker down for the night, we pulled off at an earlier rest stop just to fill our water and have some food. The potable water station was convenient, and we read that dump and fill was free for non-overnighters. Either that's true or we're water thieves. We really liked this rest stop, the Wyandot Service Plaza mile 77 eastbound. Unlike the westbound one across the street (Blue Heron), which had a water tower that was clanging metal constantly, this one actually had a grassy area with picnic tables, shaded by trees. A couple towing a fifth wheel was parking for the night, and while they didn't have the easiest time fitting into their spot, they made it work. We talked about just grabbing a spot and calling it a night, but we still had close to 2 hours of daylight left and wanted to cover more distance. We decided to march on.

By this point, both the rest areas we had stopped at that featured RV facilities had pull-through sites. Because of this, we assumed they all did. To our surprise, the next plaza had back-ins, and there was no way we would fit our 56ft rig into these spots, which were as stated, 40ft max. And that's combined length, not just RV length, because they expect you to stay hitched. We weren't concerned, though, because we could still make the next rest area before dark. I decided to look it up online to see if I could determine which type of spots it had. The Ohio Turnpike website does list the plazas with RV facilities, and it states how many spots and if they are back-in or pull-through. This was extremely helpful, but to our dismay, the next rest area would have back-ins as well. This left us out of luck and out of daylight.

We know it's a fear of many RVers, but we never fret about finding last-minute overnight parking. We just bank on the notion that there will always be something. But this night was the closest we had come to having nowhere to sleep. We were out of service plazas and even checked the truck area of one with back-in RV spots. The truck area was filled. There weren't any nearby Wal-Marts that allowed overnight parking, and the truck stops and Cracker Barrel were still another half-hour away. The Cracker Barrel was listed on my RV Parky app as having overnight parking, but we tried twice to get them on the phone to confirm, and no one picked up. Near the Cracker Barrel was a casino that allows overnight parking, so we figured we would keep driving and hopefully one of those options would pan out. Not only had the sun already set, but it had started raining. Towing in these conditions is not ideal, especially after we had already driven for a good 6 hours. Thankfully we made it to the Cracker Barrel, which had RV spots available. We couldn't wait to put our misery behind us and get some sleep, but unfortunately that wasn't in the cards. We happened to park there on the night the restaurant was getting their oven vents cleaned out. The sound of the compressors was louder than 3 semitruck generators, and the way the RV spots were laid out, our heads were right near the back door to the kitchen. The noise went on until about 2am, by which point the ovens may have been exhaust-free, but we were exhaustED. This was not the travel day we'd hoped for after getting our rig back, but we didn't blame Cracker Barrel. After all, they are just trying to prevent fires. Instead, we lamented the service plazas.

The state of Ohio is trying to accommodate RVers, and we are happy about that. Ohio gets a lot of us passing through on our way across the northern part of the country, as well as heading to and from Indiana, where most of the RV manufacturers are located. However, to have all these designated spots but make them so short that anyone towing more than an 18ft trailer would have difficulty parking, is short-sighted. Statistics show that many vacationing RVers stick close to home. We can assume that these RVers are commonly the ones in smaller rigs, and they don't necessarily need service plaza accommodations. It's the long-term and full-timers who travel long distances and are towing lots of length, and we are being left out of these otherwise wonderful overnight options. Unless you're a teeny motorhome or Class C without a toad, the back-in spots are especially useless. Besides, who wants to spend time backing into a spot when it's a quick, no-frills overnight? At one of the plazas with back-in spots, we saw a medium-sized class C having difficulty backing into a spot. Their toad, a small pickup truck, was being driven separately because they didn't want to be hitched going into the rest area. We left before we saw what maneuvers they'd need to do, but if the RV fit at all, we assume the pickup truck would then need to be driven to the regular parking area for the night. Perhaps these inconveniences are why we had only seen a handful of spots being used at all. What's the point of such accessible parking when all the details make it undeniably inaccessible?

The parking spots weren't the only aspect of these rest areas that excluded the towed RVs. When you exit the RV spots, you drive through the truck lot, where there is also a diesel station. This is perfect for the diesel trucks and campers, but for those towing with gas trucks like we are, there is a problem. At first we were excited because gas was actually offered at these pumps in addition to diesel, and this is frequently not the case. Not every pump had gas, but a couple did. However, the ones that had gas were only the pumps on the right-hand side. Our truck's gas tank is on the left. I looked up other popular trucks for towing, like the Ford F350 and Chevy Silverado. Gas tanks on the left. This would be fine if the nozzle had a hose that could reach to the other side of the vehicle, but it does not. I wasn't sure if this was just a quirk of the first rest stop we looked at, but I checked at a later one and it had the same problem. This effectively means that there is no way of getting gas after leaving the RV spot we don't fit into. We can't even venture back to the car gas station because there is only one way from the truck area to the gas station, and it's a "do not enter" that isn't big enough for our truck, let alone our entire rig.

In essence, what this means is that, towing our 28ft trailer, we could squeeze into a pull-through spot at one of these rest areas, but there's no way we can use a back-in. We can fill and dump, and not for nothing, we were happy we were able to fill because our fresh tank was totally empty when we left the manufacturer. But even after filling, we wanted to get gas and realized we couldn't. Driving a 56ft, 12,000lb rig around is difficult as it is. We would be thrilled if more states understood the need for convenient RV facilities, and Ohio almost did a great job. But if you're going to convert service plaza space into overnight spots for RVs, consider that the vast majority of these RVs are going to be travel trailers, as these are the most commonly sold RV type. The vast majority are going to be a combined length of over 40ft. If you're a vanlifer, you're probably going to want to stealth camp or use a normal spot somewhere because you can fit virtually anywhere, but if you're looking to spend $20 for an electric hookup, maybe these rest areas are for you. Just expect to do some really tight turns if you need to get gas. Or, if you're the operator of a small Class C, knock yourself out! These RV areas were meant for you. Convenient facilities, the perfect size spot, and diesel pumps on your way out. Even better, you'll have next-to-no competition for these spots because 99% of other RV types have already been excluded and are on our way to Cracker Barrel.