Our highway horror stories happen in the places you only see at night: a rest stop with one working light, a two-lane road through Nevada with no cell signal, a detour sign that was not there on the drive in. These are scary road trip stories told by drivers, truckers, and passengers who stopped somewhere they should not have.You will find trucker horror stories from the CB radio, gas station clerks who watched a car circle the lot for an hour, and payphones that ring for the person walking past. Read them with the doors locked. When you finish one, our best horror stories page has the strongest story from every category, and the random story button will pick your next drive for you.
Anybody who drives Interstate 80 across Wyoming in winter has scary highway stories. Jackknifed semis. Ground blizzards so white you can’t see your own hood. Mine is about a road closure, a man in a parka, and a gate that he said had been opened just for the two of us. In January of 2020 … Read more
I’ve driven a truck for twenty-six years, and I’ve heard a lot of trucker scary stories at a lot of truck stop counters. Most of them are made up. This one isn’t. Somebody on my CB radio counted down the mile markers to where he was waiting for me. Most scary stories from truck drivers … Read more
I didn’t know payphones still rang until the one at a rest area in southern Oregon rang right as I walked past it. That’s how my rest stop horror story starts. A man’s voice on the other end said, “You’re the white Civic. Don’t go back to your car yet.” It sounds like a scary … Read more
This train horror story took forty-one minutes. That’s how long I sat at a railroad crossing in western Kansas, in 2016, watching a freight train that should have passed in three. People around there trade very scary stories about that crossing. I never believed them until that night. I was twenty-two. I worked the closing … Read more
Most hitchhiker horror stories are about what happens after you stop. This one is about a man I never stopped for. I passed him at three different exits on the same empty stretch of Nevada interstate, forty miles apart, and he was always holding the same cardboard sign. I’ve heard plenty of scary hitchhiker stories … Read more
This scarecrow horror story happened on a county highway in northern Iowa on Halloween night, 2022. There was a scarecrow at every mile marker, and every one of them was facing the road. I’ve told this Halloween night story every October since, and I still can’t drive that road. I was driving home from my … Read more
This truck stop horror story happened during a wind closure on I-80 in Wyoming, when the speaker in the drivers’ lounge called my first name for a shower I never booked. I thought it was a mix-up until the third call came from somewhere it shouldn’t have. I’ve been called just about everything over a … Read more
This fake detour horror story starts on an empty Nebraska highway at midnight, with orange signs that looked exactly like every detour I’d ever followed. A deputy later told me there was no roadwork anywhere on that road, and then he showed me how they picked my car. The detour signs looked exactly like every … Read more
The story of the rest stop I found that night is the one I’ve never been able to tell without my hands shaking. I was driving through the night, exhausted, when I saw the sign: REST AREA 1 MILE. I hadn’t seen another exit in over an hour, and I badly needed to close my … Read more
The night I ran out of gas on an empty country road still makes me check my fuel gauge twice before any long drive. I’d been running on fumes and stubbornness, convinced I’d make it to the next town. I didn’t. The engine coughed and died on a black country road, no houses, no lights, … Read more