South Mountain Eastbound Welcome Center Rest Area — Attraction in Boonsboro

I feel a little silly doing a review for a rest stop, but it felt warranted bc of how nice this one is. Fir off, the bathrooms are the cleanest I have ever seen at a rest stop, by far. I hope that the custodial crew is well appreciated because they do an excellent job. Also the bathrooms here are huge with plenty of sinks and they even have a second overflow bathroom in case it gets busy as well as a handicap/family restroom outside of the women's and one outside of the men's main restrooms . This rest stop also has a very nice playground for kids (I'm talking and all out playground, not just one little toddler swing or something....). It also has an area for walking your pets and an indoor information center with maps and other info about the area. There are plenty of parking spots for cars, a vending area, as well as a nice sized parking lot for trucks. Last, but not least, if you catch it at the right time of day there are some pretty spectacular views here as well. Definitely far exceeded my expectations of a highway side rest...

Great rest stop but my goodness I almost ruined my car breaks pulling into this rest stop! It has the most awkward entrance. You're going downhill on a very busy highway, then suddenly you're told the right lane ends and you need to merge, so I sped up and merged thinking I didn't want to slow down to miss my chance, and boom! The entrance ramp for the welcome center totally comes out from nowhere and I had to hit the brakes so hard to be able to make it in safely to park going 65 to 10 mph was not ideal!

You've been warned lol otherwise the rest stop itself is great! Gorgeous views, nice and clean toilets, great and helpful staff for all MD brochures and booklets! Definitely worth a stop if you want to find all kinds of info on MD.

My advice to you is if you're pulling in to this rest stop, ignore the merge sign right before the entrance otherwise you'll be ramming it down the entrance of this rest stop.

Weird road systems in...

This is a great location for a rest area heading East on I-70. It's not too far from Baltimore and much easier to make a quick stop than at the I-81 and I-70 exits that take you WAY out of your way to find a restroom or place to walk your pet. The parking lots are large; there's a great play ground; there's plenty of grassy areas to walk your dog and picnic tables to eat. They have nice historical displays, separate buildings and very large restrooms.

I'm actually being somewhat generous with my rating based on my last visit and I may edit this after future visits because we travel from PA to the BWI airport somewhat often. My biggest complaint is that the restroom smelled bad, and the soap dispensers were empty. It wasn't that busy, either. It wasn't filthy, but definitely not worth a 5 star rating. You are always going to do better to stop well out of Baltimore because the traffic is usually a mess. ...