Salton City Travel Plaza/ Thermal, CA. Nov, 2025. We were traveling on 86-southbound from Indio,…read moreand stopped at this travel plaza. Located on the corner of Highway 86 and S Marina Drive, this travel plaza seems to provide everything that a traveler might need -- fuel and diesel Chevron), tons of food choices and ample dining tables (Pizza Hut, Subway, Cinnabon, Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Yogurtland, Jack in the Box, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Imperial County, and Salton 350 Bar), clean restrooms, a general store with travel necessities, and more.
What was particularly interesting about this travel stop was seeing the local culture of the large number of ATVers. Virtually every second truck had an off-highway vehicle (OHV) in its bed or on its trailer. Not being local, we're not sure where they were going to ride, but we speculated that a significant number were headed to the Imperial Sand Dunes. These dunes, in southeastern California, stretch over 40 miles long and average 5 miles wide, and are a popular recreation site.
While the travel plaza was easy to access, and had everything that you might need, we've rated it as a 4 rather than 5 because of the chaos of the plaza. All of the gas bays were occupied, with all sorts of vehicles vying for a place -- from motorcycles to OHVs to cars to tanker trucks to 18-wheeler. We chose to park "next door" because of the chaos in front of the travel plaza. It also made it easier to re-enter the highway.