The Home Depot — Palatine

Located where Route 68 meets Route 12 in the bustling NW suburb of Chicago, which lays claim to being the home of Weber grills – so while you’re on your way somewhere hopefully to camp, you can make your camping pilgrimage to this corporate office! – where if you are heading EB on 68 or SB on 12, then this will provide EZ access to this Home Depot, but if you are not and heading WB on 68 or NB on 12, get ready for a lot of tricky maneuvering as this place is not easy to access from either one of those directions. This Home Depot is one of the anchor stores at this Deer Crossing Shopping Plaza along with Aldi, which is great in case you needed to load up on any groceries beyond the supplies you would find here at Home Depot.

Once you do end up making your way onto the campus of this orange-themed home fixer-upper retailer, you’ll find a parking lot that has definitely seen better days as the very worn concrete surface is chock full of cracks, but it is very level and there’s decent pockets of free parking in scattered positions all over the place. You’ll want to watch out for some of the parking aisles that have been otherwise cluttered by rental equipment, gardening supplies, shopping carts and trees from the makeshift nursery that takes up a good section of this parking pad. Inside the store, the staff are very accommodating and friendly while the restrooms are just slightly less than acceptable. Back outside, there’s great lighting and overall, this place isn’t too terribly busy, beyond what you would expect to see from such a place as Palatine with its suburban sprawl.

While scoring criteria may vary from one person to the next, here are the 5 most important criteria that informed my rating of this overnight location: convenience (EZ on- and off-access), safety & security, quality (of facilities), peace & quiet and amenities (either on-site or nearby). Here’s how I ranked this particular overnight spot:

Convenience: 2 

Safety & Security: 3 

Quality: 3 

Peace & Quiet: 2 

Amenities: 3 

Overall, I scored this location a 3. 

Happy Overnighting!