Good Roads for License Plate Spotting

[ftballfan]

I remember going down I-75 in GA very late at night and most of the plates were Michigan plates.

Also, Cedar Point is a good place for plate spotting during summer weekends. Lots of OH and MI, but also some PA, IN, NY, and ON plates as well.

[bulldog1979]

I remember driving home from the St. Louis area on I-55 and I-39 in Illinois and seeing plates from roughly 40 states and maybe 5 provinces along the way.

[ce929wax]

When I lived in Knoxville, I used to see plates from every state that I-75 traveled through.  Here in Michigan, I see Illinois, Indiana, and believe it or not, quite a few California plates.

[mapman1071]

US 60 Superstition Freeway Mesa & Apache Junction AZ
Main Street/Apache Trail/Old West Highway (US60X) Mesa & Apache Junction AZ
Both Above October-April  Northern State & Canadian Plates Everywhere (Snowbirds)

Scottsdale (2 Stadiums), Tempe, Mesa (2 Stadiums), Phoenix (3 Stadiums), Goodyear, Surprise, Peoria: Mid February to April 1-5 Within 2 miles of a Cactus League Spring Training Stadium

[corco]

Tucson - like the Phoenix area with all the snowbirds but with more Mexican plates!

When I lived there, I saw plates in Tucson from as far south as Oaxaca. You'd see Sonora/Sinaloa/Jalisco plates on a daily basis. A couple times, I saw a Mexico car parked next to a US car parked next to a Canadian car in a parking lot, which I've never once seen anywhere else.

[Conn. Roads]

I live in Upstate NY, and my area has lots of out of state plates. This is because there is a college, and also a military base.

[mrcmc888]

When I lived in Knoxville, I used to see plates from every state that I-75 traveled through.  Here in Michigan, I see Illinois, Indiana, and believe it or not, quite a few California plates.

Yeah, I-40/75 in Knoxville is great for license plate spotting.  You get the snowbirds heading to Florida combined with those from out west either heading south or going to I-81.

[andrepoiy]

I believe Niagara Falls, USA has a huge variety of plates. The last time I went, there were plates from all over the place. California, Wisconsin, Louisiana, New England + NY + NJ plates, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, Ontario, Quebec, it was great!

[Techknow]

In California, Yosemite National Park attracts cars from many states, so El Portal Road, Big Oak Flat Road, Tioga Road, Wawona Road.

Out by the coast, I would say the best roads to spot license plates are expressways/freeways with moderate level of traffic. I seen an out-of-state vehicle drive slowly on CA 17 towards Santa Cruz, so it was probably the driver's first time going through that!

[hbelkins]

In Kentucky, you get a lot of Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, Indiana, Ontario, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida plates on I-75. Much of it depends on whether you're north or south of Lexington. I-65 yields those as well, plus a smattering of Illinois and Alabama plates. Elizabethtown is often a dividing line on where you'll see more from a certain state vs. less from that state.

Lots of Missouri and Kansas plates can be seen on I-24.

I'm surprised at how just few Kentucky plates I see on I-79 in West Virginia. I expect that number to increase, as online trip routing services and GPS units start routing DC traffic across Corridor H. A friend of mine recently got routed across that way heading back this way from DC.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

In MN, I-90. It's the long-haul route through the state far more favored by thru traffic between east and west than I-94.

[cpzilliacus]

DC-295 in the District of Columbia (the only "state" highway in the city) sees a LOT of North-South traffic along the East Coast (from Florida and Alabama in the south to Maine, Quebec and the Maritime provinces).  Most of this traffic driven by people using GPS units that have no congestion feedback to inform route choices, since the shortest path is indeed DC-295 and not I-95, but the congestion on DC-295 is bad 7 days a week and it is a route best avoided.

[allniter89]

I 10 AL,MS,LA,TX.
On US 98 we get the spring breakers from AL,MS, GA,TN,TX,MO,AR,KY.
In the winter we get the snowbirds from ON,QU,MI,OH,IN.
We also have a huge AF Base (Eglin AFB) I see alot of AK plates but very few of other states.

[thspfc]

Pretty much all of the Interstates that cross the Great Plains. Especially I-70 in KS and MO, and I-80 in WY, NE, and IA.

[Buck87]

I would say the best in Ohio would have to be the Turnpike, especially the section between I-280 and the I-80/I-90 split, where you see a mix of Cedar Point bound traffic plus all the various coast to coast, east coast to midwest etc. traffic that gets funneled through this area by the Great Lakes.

[interstate73]

I live in Morris County, NJ so I travel on I-80, I-287, NJ-24 etc fairly frequently and I've actually found I don't see out-of-state plates all that often, especially east of Exit 25 where you become firmly ensconced in suburbia. And when I do see out of state plates they're usually from New York (most common), Pennsylvania, and (somewhat less frequently) Connecticut, i.e. a neighboring state and the other components of the Tri-State. Maryland and Massachusetts plates are also seen every once in a while, most likely from visitors, as well as from Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas, which likely belong to snowbirds, rental cars, and people saving insurance $$$ by registering their cars with relatives' addresses down South.

I also travel I-80/I-380/I-81 to go back and forth from school pretty often and in PA I'm always surprised by just how few Pennsylvania plates are on the road. It always seems to be mostly NY and NJ with an edge to NY, probably because it's the fastest route between Upstate west of Syracuse and Downstate. Of course there's also a smattering of Ontario and Quebec plates as well, and the only Alberta plate I've seen in the wild in the US was on this road (well, other than the one I saw driving through my quaint little subdivision once  ), but it is mostly a NY-NJ duopoly so not incredibly interesting.

[Super Mateo]

Every summer, I play a game with this at my workplace.  I can't say where I work, but I will say it is not far from Interstate 80.  I write down each state's postal code on a sheet of paper and cross off a state when I see its license on a car parked in the lot.  If I could get anyone else interested, I'd make bingo cards of it, but that hasn't happened.

States on I-80 seen: CA, IA, IL, IN, OH, PA, UT, NJ, NV, WY
States not on I-80 seen:  AL, AR, AZ, CO, FL, ME, MI, MO, MS, NC, NM, NY, OK, TN, TX, VA, VT, WI
States on I-80 not seen:  NE (!)
States not on I-80 not seen:  AK, CT, DE, GA, HI, ID, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, MN, MT, ND, NH, OR, RI, SC, SD, WA, WV

28 out of 50, or 56%.  Not bad.  The lack of any NE plates this year is the biggest surprise.

Back on topic, Interstate 80 is a good bet.  I've seen a lot of plates from both states on the route and states that are not.

[royo6022]

Interstate 64 through Indiana. It can be a bit of a bore but I always see Ohio, Kentucky, the Virginia's, New York here and there, Missouri, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Arkansas,

[allniter89]

I've heard that Glacier National Park is an excellent spot for license plate spotting in the summer. I'd extend that to say all National Parks are good locations for it. My experience at Great Smoky Mountains NP tends to confirm this.

We used to go up in the Great Smokey Mountains in the summer to escape the FL heat/humidity. Most every car was from FL. Great Smokey Mountains is great in the summer, high temps 70s lows 50s compare to FL 90s-70s.

[swhuck]

I-75 south of Atlanta into Florida is amazing for spotting license plates, far and away the best combo of variety and quantity that I think I've ever seen on an Interstate. There are plenty of plates in Atlanta as well.

Anything on the Arizona side of the Colorado river from Yuma to Bullhead City (US95, AZ95) has tons of plates, including a great selection of Canadian plates.

Most National Parks are prime places to spot plates, and downtowns in big cities are generally good.

[Konza]

US 60 Superstition Freeway Mesa & Apache Junction AZ
Main Street/Apache Trail/Old West Highway (US60X) Mesa & Apache Junction AZ
Both Above October-April  Northern State & Canadian Plates Everywhere (Snowbirds)

Scottsdale (2 Stadiums), Tempe, Mesa (2 Stadiums), Phoenix (3 Stadiums), Goodyear, Surprise, Peoria: Mid February to April 1-5 Within 2 miles of a Cactus League Spring Training Stadium

Between the snowbirds, the baseball fans in February and March, the proximity to Mexico, and the military bases (Luke AFB in the Phoenix area. Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, and the Army's Fort Huachuca in Sierra Vista), there are a lot worse places for license plate spotting than central and southern Arizona.

[paulthemapguy]

I've heard that Glacier National Park is an excellent spot for license plate spotting in the summer. I'd extend that to say all National Parks are good locations for it. My experience at Great Smoky Mountains NP tends to confirm this.

My first thought when seeing this thread was to write something about all the high-profile national parks in general.  They're foremost tourist attractions that require an automobile to reach.  This is contrasted with the top tourist attractions in urban areas, which can be reached through transit methods besides automobiles.  You'll maybe see some varied license places in urban areas to which people are flying and renting cars, but that isn't going to give you as great a diversity as Yellowstone, Yosemite, or Glacier NP.

[Rothman]

Saw a lot of Texas plates on the Thruway this weekend between Albany and Syracuse.

[kphoger]

Saw a lot of Texas plates on the Thruway this weekend between Albany and Syracuse.

When my family goes on road trips, we do a competitive license plate spotting game.  I give different point values to different states (or provinces or whatever) based on how far away they are and what the populations are.  Texas is such a populous state that, in Kansas, spotting one is worth fewer points than even spotting Oklahoma.  Texas plates are everywhere.

[interstate73]

Not a road per se but Ithaca, NY in general is great for spotting since students in the area come from all over the place. In addition to the most common NY/NJ plates you also regularly see CT, FL, IL, MA, MD, OH, PA and tons of others scattered around. I've also seen plates from as far away as Alaska and Nuevo Leon (one of only two Mexican plates I've ever seen here in the Northeast!) and I even saw a Hawaii plate in the Wegman's parking lot the other day