Most state DOTs expose rest area data as a layer in their open GIS portal, plus a static PDF or CSV. Federal Highway Administration aggregates some of it, and OpenStreetMap has crowdsourced coverage that fills gaps. Combining state DOT primary data with OpenStreetMap supplementary data covers the network well, with editorial review for any conflicts.

Some northern-state facilities close December through March or April. Store openingDates per row as an array of date ranges, and have the base template render a banner when the current date falls outside the open window. The quarterly refresh updates the dates, and a smaller weekly job re-evaluates the open flag without re-pulling the full dataset.

Yes, but keep them in a separate page group at /travel-plazas/{slug}/ because the data shape and audience differ. Public rest areas focus on free amenities; private plazas focus on fuel, food, and showers. Internal links between the two groups at the same exit help road trippers see all options.

Most state DOT inventories include EV charging fields now, but the canonical source is the Department of Energy AFDC (Alternative Fuels Data Center) which catalogs every public charger. Join AFDC data to rest area rows by coordinates and surface stall count plus connector types on the page.

Run a parallel page group at /interstate/{slug}/ from the same dataset. The interstate page lists every rest area along the corridor in mile-marker order, with internal links to each per-facility page. This creates the corridor-level surface that ranks for 'rest stops on I-95' style queries.

Schema.org Place with amenityFeature for restrooms, picnic tables, EV chargers, and so on. Add openingHoursSpecification for facilities with set hours and geo coordinates for the map embed. Tag mapping renders the JSON-LD on the base page with field values pulled from the row.

Quarterly is the right cadence for the static inventory. EV stalls change faster (AFDC updates daily), so EV-specific selector mappings can read from a separate cached AFDC slice on a weekly cadence while the main row refreshes quarterly. The two refreshes can coexist on the same page.

Yes, but pull from a structured source (TripAdvisor, Google Places via API) rather than scraping forums. Store a per-facility average rating and review count from the API and refresh weekly. Avoid embedding full review text unless you license it, since unlicensed scraping is both legally and SEO-risky.