What’s Really at That Exit?
A Marietta-built tool answers the question highway signs never do
By Christiane · Try it! Eggzitguide.com
Anyone who travels in unfamiliar terrain knows the feeling. You’re somewhere between home and your destination. You’re really low on gas, and a blue highway sign promises food and fuel at the next exit. So you take it. Then you drive, and drive and drive. One mile. Two. Three. The gas station turns out to be four miles down a dark county road, and the gas station closed two years ago. By the time you’ve turned around, you’ve lost twenty minutes and tons of gas.
In 2026 it is even more important to save travel miles due to the awful price of gas!
I have done this more times than I can count. And the trips that really stuck with me weren’t even about food. They were the times I needed something a highway sign will never show you — an urgent care, a pharmacy still open at nine o’clock, a Walmart for a forgotten phone charger, a grocery store with actual produce instead of a wall of chips and candy. Highway signs show six businesses at most, and they’re almost always gas, fast food, and chain hotels. The moment you need anything real, you’re on your own, squinting at your phone while safely pulled over.
For years I thought: I wish I could build a tool that just tells you what’s actually at an exit. I struggled with a couple of wordpress map sites and then gave up. But I finally got it done and tested this week!
It’s called Eggzitguide — egg, exit, you get it — and the idea is simple. You tell it your state, your interstate, and your exit number. It tells you what’s nearby: pharmacies, grocery stores, urgent care, hotels, restaurants, health food, even a laundromat or an office-supply store. And — this is crucial — it tells you how far off the highway each one really is. “Food, Exit 42” might mean half a mile or it might mean eight. Now you know before you commit.
You can pull it up for any exit in the country, which makes it handy whether you’re running up to Columbus for the afternoon or driving the family to the coast for a week. Try I-77 Exit 25 here in Ohio and you’ll see the idea. Then try the exits along whatever trip you’ve got coming this summer.
The best part is smaller mom and pop businesses who probably could not afford a big sign on the freeway will benefit! I love to find non franchise restaurants everywhere I go! The Eggzitguide will help you find them too, and will even help you find a hardware store.
I want to be honest – it is still a work in progress. I built it by myself, the business listings come from open map data, and like any map data, some of it is out of date. (Always call ahead — things change.) But it works, and every time I use it on the road I’m reminded why I wanted it in the first place.
What it needs now is people, real travelers, on real trips, telling me what’s wrong and what’s missing. If you take a familiar exit and notice a listing is off, that’s gold to me. If you know your own corner of the map — the exits around Marietta, the stops between here and Charleston — you can help fill in what’s actually there.
And if you just try it on your next drive and send me a note about what confused you, that helps too. There’s no commitment. Even flagging one wrong listing makes the whole thing better for the next person.
I’m a teacher and entrepreneur, not a Silicon Valley type. It’s a little nerve-wracking to put something I just created out into the world. But I keep coming back to that feeling on the exit ramp — the gamble, the wrong turn, the five wasted miles — and I think most people who’ve driven any distance know it too. Eggzitguide is my small attempt to take the gamble out of it.
If you want to try it, it’s at eggzitguide.com. I will appreciate your feedback if you have time to give it. The email specifically for this is [email protected] and is listed in contact us on the app itself.
Most of all, I want to know if it helped you on your next trip!