stopping for a single night - rest area or rv park?

I am flexible. I cannot plan a trip with set stop overs. Somedays I may feel like driving ten hours,others I may feel like three.
For example we are traveling to MB end of April. Now I would like to make Roanoke Rapids for the night. Probably end up an hour or so short.
The decision will be made on the spot whether to push on get a campsite or grab a parking lot.
I don't like staying in rest stops due to the truckers. I don't really give a hang about their hours of operation or the fact that they are working or anything else. They are just big noisy and for the most part extremely rude.

I pay taes also and have every right to use any spot in a rest area not posted for trucks exclusively. I drove truck for a few years my brothers have both made a career out of trucks driving. Trust me,the majority are not the "Knights of the Road", that many would like to believe!!!

Many states do not allow prolonged parking in a rest stop. I've seen as little a 2hrs permitted. I was kind of surprised to see in my travels places that did allow for much longer periods!
Even when vacation time used to be limited, a solid nights sleep is critical to my safe driving. So motels/campgrounds it always has been. And now, it is even more pleasant, since we can take the time to setup, cook dinner, hang outside the trailer in the evening, chat with other campers,etc. before hitting the road the next morning.

It is a little annoying when the Tiffin next door starts up at oh-dark-thirty to air up so he can leave. You can usually tell if this will happen because the Jeep/CRV is left attached to the tow bar. I'm retried, so I don't get why everyone is in such a hurry, but I can also remember driving cross country with a single overnight stop, trying to get home and back on 2 weeks leave.

I'd prefer Walmarts/Cubelas/Cracker Barrel to rest stops. The OTR haulers count on those spots to stop to stay legal. They're working, you're not.

Flying J/Pilots are just plain gross.

Sprink-Fitter wrote:
We are not cheap, we go to a campground.

We are not cheap either.

Nor are we inconsiderate of those on vacation while we are on route to our destination. We generally drive till 10 - 12pm then stop then get back on the road before 6am.

I guess if I had nothing better to do and was stopping mid afternoon and not pulling back out until mid morning it would be a different story.

For 4-6 hours like you are asking, I never stay at a campground for that short amount of time. I stay at Wm, cracker barrel, flying j, pilot, home depot, church lot...anywhere there is an empty lot. These locations are generally close to the highway so I pull off, get some sleep, wake up, shower, eat and hit the road again.

My wife always preferred RV parks or campgrounds, we were not in a hurry and each new place was part of the experience. But we usually pulled in late afternoon, left mid-morning. Setups were minimal for overnights, but we did have a cord to plug in and two slides to move out. A lot of this was driven by the need for power, to run air conditioning. Between the Appalachians and the Rockies, it can be quite hot through the "camping" season. Same for the desert Southwest and the Deep South.

If you are going to stop only 4-6 hours, and you have no need for power for climate control or cooking, truck stops, rest areas, available parking lots can work. There are a lot of rest areas that discourage activities that look like camping, but still others that have separate RV areas and even some with power hookups.

Alone now, I travel more often in my van, and I could sleep in it at rest areas and travel centers. But for a good rest for another long day of driving, I'll pull into a business class motel (preferably one with restaurant and bar) and spend upwards of $100 for meals and a room for the night. I've done the same traveling in my RV through areas hot enough that I would need hookups to get a comfortable sleep, or I wanted to save the time needed for the "camping" part.

Your choice. What other people do, they may have different needs and different goals.

The balance in these threads in interesting. Heavy percentage of smell the roses advocates in this thread. The destination not the journey supporters must already be out on the roads :)

As you make your plans you should know that I-10 is not near the water as it passes North of Pensacola. The beaches are well South of downtown on the barrier islands.

You will loose at least a half hour getting from I-10 down to US-90 and then another half hour in the morning getting back to the Interstate.

We frequently (without the trailer) take the coastal route getting from New Orleans back to Orlando with an overnight in Panama City. I used to do it in one jump, but I'm getting too old for that poop.

We are not cheap, we go to a campground.

Wal-marts and Cracker Barrels work great if you are pushing it to your destination and going to be driving late and leaving early. My experience has been there is usually enough parking lot available to find a level spot or a slanted spot if you need that to make you level without unhooking. Usually there are more than just me there and security is very present. Most RV's will also try to park so that they can put out at least one of their slides as most RV's barely function otherwise, but they try to put the slide side to the outside of the parking lot or other planter.

I prefer a campground if I'm at least getting off the road before sunset, then it just makes more sense as you will be relaxing, showering and replenishing, and obviously if I have the time to take my time to the destination then that is easier to do, but I'm not retired yet either and sometimes the destination is more important than the journey. Hopefully not to often though.