Living Out of a Bus Ed. 2 - Traveling in a WW Pandemic
*Originally published on Sept 2nd, 2020; Edited on Sept 16th, 2020.
When we decided to keep our road trip plan even once COVID hit, we got some looks and questions and had some uncertainty ourselves. I wasn’t sure how different things would be, if traveling during this time was not smart, and if quitting my job during a pandemic really made sense, and if parks would even be open. But we did it anyways and have learned a lot along the way. Honestly, our decision had pros and cons, but after being on the road for 6 weeks or so, I feel the decision was the right one to make!
So how has it been overall?
Overall, I have to say we haven’t felt at much of a disadvantage traveling during this time. Although there are likely more national folks doing outdoor activities, international tourists are not really around due to flight restrictions. We wear masks when we go somewhere, sani / wash hands when we leave, and shower when we can :) Intentionally, majority of what we were hoping to do on this trip involved the outdoors which has actually been promoted throughout COVID.
What has changed? Anything surprising?
MASKS: I think every state we have been either required or HIGHLY suggested the wearing of masks in any public indoor space, some states even outdoors if you are within 6ft of other people (even individual porto-potties require masks). For the most part, we have been really impressed with how seriously people and businesses have taken this measure. I think there has been 1 gas station in middle of nowhere Washington where the clerk was not wearing a mask, but she was behind plexi. To add some context, here are the states we have gone through: Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Washington, and Oregon. Mask rules are nothing new though, so we were prepared for this :)
UPDATED: California, Nevada, and Utah have not been the same in terms of mask wearing and strictly enforced rules. Utah has probably been the worst, where its common for even workers to not be wearing masks indoors at places like gas stations. While hiking, I would say maybe 25% of folks have masks with them, while maybe 10% actually put them over their face.
HIKING: Even on trailheads (which we first thought was crazy), lots of people are wearing clavas or some kind of mask that they pull up when people pass them. Appreciated & we went out and bought our own after a few hikes (even though COVID risk outside is minimal). Some trailheads have been really busy and others we don’t see a single sole. Lots of it depends on when we go (weekday vs weekend, early AM or mid-afternoon) and where we are (middle of a NF or Glacier NP).
OUT&ABOUT: how we approach bigger cities and towns has probably been the biggest change. Restaurants and going to indoor places is obviously different than pre-COVID times. As expected, some places have changed dining experiences to “take out” only. We haven’t stopped at many food joints, but when we have, we have found make-shift outdoor ordering systems with indoor seating options closed. We spend less time in cities that we pass through and mostly stop to refill groceries, take a stroll through the farmers market, and maybe get some sushi take-out style. ;) But more often than not, this is what our dinner looks like.
Okay, okay, it’s not actually usually like that. This is the more common look :D #simple&tasty
CLOSURES: there are definitely some closures or limited operating businesses we have noticed. Google, who was once a very trusted source, does not always accurately reflect the hour changes or closures either. We have found that most businesses and park services give a detailed explanation in their own web page about any adjustments due to COVID, so it just takes a bit more digging which I recommend if you get disappointed when you drive 30 mins to find a “closed” sign.
National parks: this is where we have witnessed the most adjustment in operating.
Visitor centers: Some visitor centers are closed or on limited hours and many that are open have moved to an outdoor set-up. Not a big deal unless you are looking to get stickers or passport stamps, in which pay attention to the details of the closures :)
Camping: Some parks also have closed down camping for the season or have limited campgrounds open in the park, even Theodore Roosevelt had all campgrounds closed.
Trailheads: we have not noticed an effect here except once - Glacier had the entire EAST entrance and park closed for the 2020 season, although I think that may be due to something more than COVID.
Capacity: we haven’t experienced this at parks yet, but doing research, Yosemite has additional COVID measures in place to limit the # of cars / day allowed in the park. You need day passes along with your national park pass to get into the park!
Other camping: all other camping (National forest campgrounds, private campgrounds, state parks) has maintained mostly “normal” operating in terms of capacity and remaining open. Bathroom facilities typically have signs that require masks or give warnings about their cleaning schedule, sometimes, but more rarely bathrooms are closed, however sometimes they are. I would be specifically cautious at private campgrounds; if you are hoping for a shower, do some double checking! We ran into our first state park closed on the Oregon coast, but it was just a day park that likely gets a lot of traffic.
Other services: we have noticed some park shuttles have closed down as well. We haven’t really intended to use these services, but pretty much all transportation we have come across has adjusted schedules, capacity, etc. for the 2020 season. At Glacier, an odd closure we noticed was water rentals. Only 1 company of the few was still operating for the season (kayaks, paddle boards, etc) and really monopolized on that fact!
UPDATE: Bryce NP and Zion NP are still operating their park shuttles, at least partially. They have limited capacity on them however. Bryce doesn’t allow vehicles over 20ft on the scenic pass & Zion doesn’t allow any private vehicles on the main byway during peak season, so it’s really the only option for rigs like us to enter the park. For that, we are thankful the shuttles are in operation, but it is a bit more planning. Zion required shuttle reservations!
Have parks and outdoor activities seemed really busy?
Honestly, I have heard this a lot from people, the whole “OMG - camping is going to be CRAZY this summer, EVERYONE is buying campers!!!” And some popular places (like Glacier) have been really busy. However, I would expect a park like Glacier in the summer to mostly always be really busy. You can always find ways around people if you are like us and dislike being around loads of tourists (see tips and tricks for avoiding crowds below!) Having traveled parks in non-COVID times, I haven’t really felt much of a influx in traffic, but it’s possible I have prepared myself for more people, so it just seems to be meeting expectation - who the heck knows!
Have you ran into issues finding places to camp due to increased demand?
Very rarely, we have ran into issues finding a place to park. We mostly go for First Come First Serve options as we find driving up and parking the simplest and gives us a lot of freedom for planning. However, this can be a risky business if you are in busy areas. Camping in the Seely Lake / Flathead Lake area in MT was the busiest and most difficult place to find camping thus far - both the state parks and also National Forests. It’s a very lake-filled area and seems to be the “summer destination” for MT folks which we did not know going in. After checking a couple NF campgrounds, we happened to have a generous man call us in saying he was leaving soon, so we lucked out there. Over the next days, we were looking to camp in one of the 6 state parks along Flathead - all were 100% filled. After heading off the lake to another state park (try #3 of the day), we landed a campsite, but it was a few hours just to find a place to park for the night.
On the flip, in the last couple weeks (late August) we have been traveling Washington and Oregon without any issues. In fact, majority of the campgrounds we have gone to have a TON of availability, like not even 50% capacity. N.Cascades was a little busier, but now that we have gotten out of the Seattle surrounding area, it has been very low traffic.
Now that the weather is much cooler (mountains and fall), we are even less worried about camping options. We have not hooked up the AC unit in weeks and honestly need a heater more than an AC unit these days. We woke up to a temp of 41F the other day when we were in the mountains around Bend! We are heading into Cali now though and only moving south from here, so maybe the heat will catch up with us once again. BUT without the need for AC, we really need no utilities and can be completely off-grid with Ruby. So if we plan for a campground and it’s closed, we can pretty easily park wherever allows overnight parking. The benefits of solar power :D
Tools for finding places to stay?
We have a couple apps we use to help us find places to stay as well. We typically pay for camping ~40-50% of the time and find free places to park the other nights.
National Geographic Road Atlas, adventure edition - this was gifted to us (S/O to Jackie) and has been a great resource for showing where campground options are (public park focused). Note: we have stayed at NF campgrounds with 7 sites and NF campgrounds with 170 sites…this plays a big factor when banking on availability as well! You can find this information on the NF website, but the atlas does not get into capacity information. Also, keep in mind that many public campgrounds do NOT have cell signal and most definitely do not have wifi. So if you are needing to work or play Pokemon Go!, these are probably not the places for you.
Free Campsites - great for finding free places to stay! Also has a rating system. This has led us to some great free camping as we try our best to avoid Walmart parking lots (so far WINNING!). Places to think about: fairgrounds, county parks, dispersed camping options. We have found all of these through this site!
Free Roam - app with many filters - private, public, free, Verizon signal, etc. It doesn’t appear to have the largest user base yet, so many campgrounds have limited reviews and information, but it does show you places that exist along a route. I typically double source what I find from this app.
Google & search “camping” in the area of interest
Hipcamp - we haven’t actually booked anything on this yet, but this is similar to an “Air BnB” for camping. People with land (or a front yard) simply post a description with amenities offered and a price. You can book this “lot” through the app - “Carol’s mountain view property with electricity”. It’s an interesting concept.
Tips & tricks for staying away from people:
Go on longer trails - anything more than 3-4 miles takes out a very large percentage of the average tourist.
Go on harder trails - anything with a “difficult” rating also takes out a large percentage of the average tourist, or should. You will always find those climbing mountains in flip-flop, but when it says “ropes at the top”, less flip flops emerge. #SMH
Plan your stay during the week in the busy areas (Sunday - Thursday) - some places that are busy you don’t want to bypass simply because they are busy (cough, National parks, cough). We have found planning for the weekdays helps!
Avoid “busy season” as much as possible - after Labor Day weekend which is soon approaching, we are pretty confident that crowds will continue to lessen. We will keep you posted on this one!
Get going early OR go late - no matter how busy of an area we are in, if we are up before 7AM, it seems to beat majority of the crowds. The other strategy we have had luck with is going late, just avoid the middle of the day :) Especially in places like Glacier, it appeared 10AM - 4PM were terribly busy, and anything outside of that we were able to find parking fairly easily.
Pick spacious places to stay - RV parks are not the secret to avoiding people and keeping a distance, let me tell you from experience. National Forests are the most secluded type of camping we have found. You can stay on many National Forest roads for free, but there are also really great and cheap campground options offered by the NF services (ranging from $10 - $30). Not always, but often, the campsites in these are pretty spacious and smaller (i.e. 5-20 sites).
COVID has also made us really consider how important going into cities is for us. Typically, going into cities means eating out, drinking out, and spending more money than planned. We budgeted for entertainment, but those things add up quickly! So when it comes to this front, we have undoubtedly saved money due to COVID. We still do go to cities because we need groceries and they’re usually along major highways and Deschutes Brewery is hard to pass up. We might even stop somewhere for a coffee once a week, but that’s not very often :) If I knew what I knew now, we would still be out on our Ruby adventure :)
UPDATE: where are we now??
As I am writing, it’s September 2nd, 2020 - we are currently hunkered down on the Oregon Coast near Port Orford. We have made quite the trek since leaving Seattle, where we were visiting family. We have really loved our time in the PNW and aren’t sure we are ready to venture into the "#Cali life which we are likely going to be by the weekend! It’s a gloomy day here on the ocean, but only the 2nd gloomy day we have had on this adventure, so cannot complain! :)
Peace, love, & adventure on,
yo’ girl Jen
OH, and big news if you missed it - this man SHAVED his face!!!
