PIT STOP DATA

The Old Road Still Belongs to the Independents

By Jake Boyles · August 28, 2026 · From the Pit Stop database of 750,000+ places on America's interstates and legendary roads

This week we did something no exit app has bothered to do: we mapped the old roads. US 1 end to end, Key West to Fort Kent. Highway 1 from Dana Point to Leggett. US 27, the road Florida drove before I-75 existed. Town by town, 673 stops, the same coverage the interstates get.

Which means we can finally answer a question with numbers instead of nostalgia: is the old American road trip actually still out there? Or did the chains follow the traffic everywhere?

Bar chart comparing chain share of food and lodging on I-75, I-95 and I-10 versus US 27, US 1 and Highway 1, with the old roads far more independent

On the three big interstates, national chains own 55-64% of the lodging. On the three legendary roads, the independents still hold it: 61-82% of the beds belong to somebody, not something.

Food tilts the same way: 33-43% chain at the interstate exits, 18-29% on the old roads.

The gradient is the story

It's not one lucky road. Line all six up and it's a staircase: I-75 is the most franchised road in the set (64% chain lodging, 43% chain food), I-95 and I-10 right behind it. Then you step off the interstate and the numbers flip. US 27 at 39% chain lodging. US 1 at 35%. And Highway 1 out on the California coast at 22% — four out of five places to sleep, and better than four out of five places to eat, are still independent.

The economics are almost too clean. Franchises buy interchange corners because interchanges concentrate traffic; that's the whole model. The old roads don't have interchanges. They have main streets, and a main street storefront in Cambria or Wiscasset or Mount Dora is exactly the real estate the franchise model doesn't want — and exactly where an independent survives.

What the data didn't say

We expected the clichés to show up in the counts, and honestly, they didn't. Diners named "Diner" appear at the same rate on I-95 as on US 1 — the interstate exits inherited plenty of them. Motel-named lodging too. The difference isn't the presence of the old stuff; it's the ownership of everything. The interstate has diners and six chain hotels at every ramp. The old road has the diner, a motor court, and somebody's name on both.

Why we're doing this

The interstate is how you make time. The old road is why you take the trip. But "let's take the old road" has been a leap of faith for fifty years, because the interstates got mapped to death and the old roads got forgotten. That's what we're fixing: the same know-every-stop coverage for the legends, so choosing the slow road stops costing you certainty. US 1, US 27 and Highway 1 are live in the Pit Stop app now, towns as the stops, real mile markers.

We're mapping one more legendary road this fall, and the internet picks it. Route 66, US 101, the Blue Ridge Parkway, US 50, A1A, or the Great River Road. Cast your vote here — it's one tap, and the winner gets built.

Methodology. Every food and lodging place at the interstate exits (within ~1 mile of each ramp) and old-road town stops in the Pit Stop database: I-75, I-95 and I-10 (n = 43,807 food / 19,348 lodging across the three) vs US 1, US 27 and Highway 1 (n = 8,080 / 4,327). "Chain" = the place carries a brand tag in the source data or its name matches one of ~60 national franchise brands (fast food, casual dining, and hotel flags). Independent counts include local multi-location businesses, so if anything the method overstates the chains' share of the old road. Place data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) + Overture Maps. Snapshot: August 2026. Cite freely with a link.

📱 Pit Stop covers every interstate exit and now the legendary roads — food, gas, hotels, and seven Backseat Games. App Store · Google Play · free town & exit guides.