This Is The Longest Stretch Of US Highway With No Exits, And Of Course It's In Florida

When you think of Florida, it's possible that the first thing that comes to mind is a heavily branded theme park. Maybe you think of the NASA facilities there, or the historic NASCAR races near the coastline. If you've ever spent a long time driving through Florida, though, you'll likely think of the long highways and swaths of protected wilderness. So it shouldn't be a surprise that the longest highway without exits cuts straight through that area. 

There's a 48.9-mile stretch of Florida's Turnpike between Kissimmee-St. Cloud and Yeehaw Junction with no exits, the longest exit-less length of highway in the entire country.

Florida's Turnpike was initially envisioned in the 1950s to handle the traffic tied to the Sunshine State's post-World War II population boom. There were nearly 1.9 million Floridians in 1940. That figure swelled to roughly 4.9 million by 1960 — that means a lot more cars on the road. 

While the Turnpike was successful in moving people around, it has evolved over the decades into a tolled alternative to Florida's Interstates. Florida's Turnpike parallels I-95 through Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach, so there are several options when traveling. When both highways diverge in Fort Pierce, Florida's Turnpike shoots off into the interior. From there, it's 91 miles north to Orlando with only a single exit at Yeehaw Junction.

The remote routing of Florida's Turnpike between Kissimmee-St. Cloud and Yeehaw Junction also means that authorities won't hesitate to close the highway when necessary. WPEC reported in 2022 that the exitless stretch was closed for four nights as a construction crew installed an overhead structure. South of Yeehaw Junction, Florida Highway Patrol closed the turnpike in both directions earlier this month after a fatal box truck crash. Law enforcement simply told drivers to avoid the area and use alternate routes.

Yeehaw Junction, originally called Jackass Junction because of a local ranchers' donkeys (it also has a pretty fun alliterative quality to it), had one of the few stops in the area, called the Desert Inn. The establishment opened in the 1880s as a bar and brothel. The Inn evolved to feature a motel and gas station as cars became prevalent.

The Desert Inn was even the site of a station for the Florida East Coast Railroad, a company best known today for sharing tracks with Brightline, America's deadliest railroad. When Florida's Turnpike was planned and built, state officials believed that it was inappropriate to place an exit in a town called Jackass Junction and requested the name change to Yeehaw. Sadly, the Desert Inn went out of business in 2015, was nearly destroyed when a semi plowed through it in 2019, and was finally demolished in 2024.