ADAC rest stops in the test: You shouldn’t take a break here

Anyone who goes on a long journey by car sometimes dreads the breaks. German rest stops don’t have the best reputation. Completely different from, for example, Italy, where you can almost look forward to grabbing a damn good coffee and Italian food at a fair price at the first car grill you can find.

But not everything is bad in this country either, as the current one shows. The club took a close look at 40 rest areas across Germany and evaluated them according to various criteria, including catering options, the condition of the sanitary facilities, pricing and infrastructure.

The bad news: None of the rest areas tested were rated “very good”. The good news: There wasn’t a complete failure and therefore a “very poor” rating. Otherwise, the situation is mixed: eight rest areas received a “good” rating, six times they received a “poor” rating, and the rest are somewhere in between.

Unlike unmanaged rest areas with those unspeakable toilet blocks that warn you not to enter them from afar with their smell, you can at least rely on one thing at the larger rest areas: there is sanitary facilities, which are usually operated by Sanifair As a rule, a “modern, well-equipped and intact” quiet place, according to the testers. However, despite the high entrance fee of one euro, some facilities did not always impress with their impeccable cleanliness.

The conclusion to the food can seem a bit surprising. The ADAC writes that the testers were “almost consistently satisfied” with the food on offer at the rest stops. But: Only three of the 40 systems tested offered fair prices. For the remaining offers, the testers found the range too expensive, and things apparently got cheeky in the shops. In the club’s opinion, the price-performance ratio there was “often overpriced”, especially compared to truck stops behind the motorway.

The three best rest areas from the current ADAC test can be found in “Fürholzen West” in Bavaria on the A9, in “Demminer Land” in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on the A20 and in “Sindelfinger Wald Süd” in Baden-Württemberg on the A8 .

The bottom three can be found on the A20 in “Fuchsberg Süd” in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, in “Münsterland West” in North Rhine-Westphalia on the A1 and in “Eisenach Nord” in Thuringia along the A4.

In general, the ADAC advises against refueling at rest stops. In another test, the club analyzed prices and came to the conclusion that you pay up to 54 cents more per liter along the highway than at gas stations near the exits.

The test also found major deficiencies in terms of child-friendliness and accessibility, and most rest areas also offered far too few fast-charging stations for electric cars. What is not in the test: Very few charging spaces are covered. When the weather is very bad, traveling with an electric vehicle at such charging stops is really a test.