When I set out in mid-July for what was supposed to be an extended roadtrip, I was hoping to recreate a similar trip from two years ago. In 2018, I had spent about half a year living out of my car while traveling around rural and spectacular stretches of the US and Canada, from Florida to the Alaskan Arctic to Newfoundland.
I had been fairly self-contained during that trip, sleeping in the back of my car, eating most of my meals off a camping stove, and spending daylight hours wandering alone around hiking trails. I hoped that that type of travel would lend itself well to pandemic times, enabling me to scratch the travel itch while keeping my contact with other people to a bare minimum.
It took about a week on the road during COVID to realize that taking all the precautions I felt were necessary to stay isolated and minimize the risk of accidentally infecting someone made it quite difficult to actually enjoy the trip the way I had imagined. Here’s what stood out to me the most about roadtripping during a pandemic.
I missed friends
Before COVID, I often planned my route around visiting friends in different parts of the country. In addition to getting to spend time with friends who in some cases I hadn’t seen in years, I was also often able to crash on a comfy couch, shower, wash a load of laundry, and enjoy being in air conditioning (or heat, depending on the season). Having these visits to look forward to helped make the solitude, lack of access to running water, and general discomfort of living in a car much more bearable. In pandemic times, however, staying with friends wasn’t possible, at least not while traveling responsibly.
I missed strangers
As much as I thrive off the solitude of a solo roadtrip, little interactions with strangers are a huge part of what makes that kind of travel so enjoyable. Random conversations at cafes, bars, diners, rest stops, and museums help balance out the loneliness and often lead to fantastic stories. None of that was really possible on this trip.
Sure, there was the guy in Cañon City, Colorado who was really excited to hear all about the bagel I was eating since he’d been meaning to try the place I’d bought it from. He kept a respectful 10 feet of distance during the whole conversation, and it was one of those little moments that make being on the road fun. But it was really the only one of those moments that I had this time around.
Small tasks became more stressful
In the past, I didn’t give a second thought to running into a gas station minimart to buy a bag of chips. During the pandemic, however, those interactions were a lot more stressful. At a gas station in Grinnell, Iowa, I just wanted to buy a bag of ice for my cooler. The clerk was wearing a mask, but the majority of the other customers weren’t. I sat outside in the car until the maskless customers left before going in to get the ice. A purchase that should’ve taken less than 60 seconds turned into a nearly 10-minute process.
Indoor facilities were closed
In normal times, my visits to National Park sites almost always begin with a stop in the visitor center. It's an opportunity to fill up water bottles, get advice and recommendations from the rangers, and browse the indoor exhibits to learn a little more about the site.
This time around, the visitor centers at the parks I visited across Indiana, Nebraska, and Colorado were all closed. At Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in Colorado, park rangers had set up a table outside to pass out brochures, but it wasn’t the same. I was much more reliant on Google to help me plan hikes and activities. Without access to the information visitor centers usually provide about the park’s flora, fauna, and natural and human history, I felt like I wasn’t able to engage as deeply.
Mask use varied wildly
I mostly eschewed cities for small towns or rural areas. However, I did also stop off in Des Moines, Omaha and Denver, which provided a “big”-city counterpoint. In Denver and Omaha, people were generally good about using masks in public. In downtown Omaha, for example, the vast majority of people I saw were wearing masks even when walking alone down an empty sidewalk. In downtown Des Moines, however, people weren’t using masks even when going into businesses.
Outside of the big cities, things were very hit or miss. Customers generally put on masks before going into a business, but not always. Employees almost always had masks on, but sometimes they were pushed down below the nose or even the chin.
Colorado had a statewide mask order in effect while I was there and in general, even in small towns, people were complying. However, I did see several people waiting in line in restaurants and cafes who were not wearing masks. College-aged kids and elderly people seemed most likely to violate the order.
While hiking in both Black Canyon of the Gunnison and Indiana Dunes National Park, I noticed that some hikers would put on a mask to pass others on the trail. Some wandered a few feet off-trail to let others pass from afar. Some turned their heads and kind of tucked their faces into their armpits while passing. However, far too many either hadn’t brought masks on their hike or didn’t bother to put them on when passing other hikers.
There were plenty of people who had masks but didn’t use them correctly. The most common error was the classic mask-pushed-below-the-nose. The most creative was a Nebraskan in his mid-20s whose mask was sideways - he had taken the elastic band that was supposed to go around his ear and put it around his entire head. The elastic for the other ear was dangling limply below his chin.
Traveler’s guilt was unavoidable
Whenever I stopped for gas in some small town along the highway, I would check the online coronavirus statistics for the surrounding county. In many cases, the entire county had had less than a handful of new cases in the past week. Despite the fact that I was avoiding all contact with people, I still felt a little guilty about being there. These were places that had been largely unaffected by the pandemic because they were isolated and off the beaten path. As a traveler stopping off, I was placing in jeopardy the isolation that had thus far protected the community.
Large events are still happening
I stayed at a hotel in Des Moines towards the end of the trip. The lobby of the hotel was decked out with signs advertising the preteen beauty pageant that had been held there the previous weekend. Apparently crowning Miss Iowa Junior Pre-Teen takes precedence over public health.
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