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Traveling out West this fall/winter during pandemic-- reckless or not?

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amazer98

RVF Regular
Joined
Sep 22, 2020
Messages
8
Hi everyone,

I am not yet an RVer, but my wife and I have booked (for the first time) a rental through Outdoorsy for five days (4 nights) in mid-October. We are recently retired and living in a condo in coastal Maine and thought we'd check out the RV way of camping to see how we liked it. So we'll take the 25' Winnebago Fuse over to Vermont and spend the first night boondocking at Quechee State Park. I plan to spend the other nights at HipCamp sites, where you can stay on the land of people's private homes and farms (sometimes with hook-ups). This sounds more appealing than commercial campgrounds, and I understand that the odds of running into psycho killers is relatively small.

If this experiment goes well and we are still married at the end, my vision would be to buy a small MH, Sprinter or Transit-based, and head to the southwestern states in late November... possibly spending the entire winter touring Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. But, there's obviously a pandemic going on. My wife in particular is concerned that the national parks may all shut down again and that the most interesting and attractive places to visit will be inaccessible. Moreover, she's concerned that if there are significant Covid outbreaks, interstate travel may be shut down and all campgrounds closed. We might still be able to find HipCamp sites or Boondockerswelcome.com sites... but who knows?

So... I would be most interested to hear the thoughts of you experienced RVers. Perhaps many of you at this moment are on the road and camping out all across our expansive country. Do you perceive traveling now to be risky, reckless or even crazy? Or is it a completely manageable risk?

Obviously, there are advantages to traveling by RV during a pandemic. You avoid restaurants and motels and the exposures they include. But if draconian restrictions are imposed on travel, and if most of the key national parks and monuments are closed along with campgrounds, that would be a deal-killer... wouldn't it? I know you can boondock on BLM land and some of that land might be gorgeous, but I don't know anything about how to find attractive BLM land to camp on. I have this mental image that oil well digging and strip mining are proceeding full-steam-ahead on public lands under the current administration and that camping there would be akin to staying in downtown Newark... but perhaps it's not as extreme as that.

Anyway, please share your thoughts. Would you head out west this winter or not?

Thanks!
 
Welcome to the RVF @amazer98. First of all my prospective comes as full time RVer. We found that it was easier to adjust to the conditions in this lifestyle. We stayed put early on and then as we got more comfortable with the situation we stayed in areas that had little to no positive cases. So I don’t think your plan is crazy.

I will say NP were closed at first and early on when some opened we did visit without to much problems, easy to social distance as parks were not crowded. Then as summer got into full swing things became more congested an we backed off on some areas.

BLM land to camp on is not anything like you described. Lots of places will be you and a few cows, nothing more. I do not BLM to stay but only because our RV is rather big. With Sprinter or Transit it would be no issue.
 
I live in the Southwest. Right now we have a lot of fires going on all over the west that are keeping some places closed. Basically everywhere that is open is restricting campfires. The places that are open are often limiting capacity but from what I've seen it's mostly just the day use capacity not the camping capacity. Who knows what the future will hold? I would expect the fires to die down but then some mud slides in California at least.

In regards to COVID I feel like the risk is low so long as you are smart about things. If you look at the outbreak maps by hospitalizations and deaths the west and southwest look pretty good. Just wear a mask any time you head into an area where there are other people nearby and just try to stay outdoors away from others as much as possible. There's a lot more room out west to spread out so it shouldn't be too hard.

Keep in mind there can be snow in November in Arizona. For instance, be sure you're comfortable driving in snowy mountain areas if you're thinking of getting to the Grand Canyon at that time of year. Snow can also close off national parks or parts of the parks. Anyway, if you go then you will want to make reservations in the national parks in advance: Recreation.gov

I wouldn't worry about campgrounds getting closed down for COVID though. I think they are pretty low on the list of places that will get shut down just for that. But some places are using COVID shutdowns as a good time to do maintenance and so they shut down for that. Also, the bigger worry about having to boondock is simply water and energy use. Since you seem curious about how to find spots, I posed that question a bit ago and then also looked into it elsewhere.

My conclusion is that to find boondocking spots it's a good idea to use these campsite apps/websites and read reviews/descriptions:
- FreeCampsites.net
- Campendium.com
- TheDyrt.com

as well as to look at the maps and read the rules at:
- Camping on Public Lands | Bureau of Land Management
- Forest Service Visitor Map
 
have this mental image that oil well digging and strip mining are proceeding full-steam-ahead on public lands under the current administration and that camping there would be akin to staying in downtown Newark... but perhaps it's not as extreme as that.
Your mental image is off. Regarding BLM lands and other free sites, the problem is not the government, but people. With COVID there are a lot of new RVers who are leaving trash, dumping their tanks on the ground and ruining it for everybody else. Even in a campground I saw a couple from CA who bought an RV and were moving to Austin, TX and they had their sewer hose connected to the coach and left on the ground without connecting it to the sewer hole.

 
I want to add that I recently discovered New Mexico closed their campgrounds to nonresidents. But by November I would hope that will change.
Also, I agree with many about BLM land. You can look through pictures on those websites I mentioned above to see what's near the camping areas. Most people aren't going to camp near oil wells or strip mines so I really dont think you need to worry so long as you camp where others have camped in the past.
 
I saw a couple from CA who bought an RV and were moving to Austin, TX and they had their sewer hose connected to the coach and left on the ground without connecting it to the sewer hole.
Did they do this because they were just stupid, forgot to hook it up to the sewer, or just didn't care where the yuck went?
 
Did they do this because they were just stupid, forgot to hook it up to the sewer, or just didn't care where the yuck went?
I have no idea. I was chatting with them and then saw it the next day. They weren't around when I noticed it and I didn't gather the courage to go say something to them when I saw they had returned. ?
 
Hi everyone,

I am not yet an RVer, but my wife and I have booked (for the first time) a rental through Outdoorsy for five days (4 nights) in mid-October. We are recently retired and living in a condo in coastal Maine and thought we'd check out the RV way of camping to see how we liked it. So we'll take the 25' Winnebago Fuse over to Vermont and spend the first night boondocking at Quechee State Park. I plan to spend the other nights at HipCamp sites, where you can stay on the land of people's private homes and farms (sometimes with hook-ups). This sounds more appealing than commercial campgrounds, and I understand that the odds of running into psycho killers is relatively small.

If this experiment goes well and we are still married at the end, my vision would be to buy a small MH, Sprinter or Transit-based, and head to the southwestern states in late November... possibly spending the entire winter touring Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. But, there's obviously a pandemic going on. My wife in particular is concerned that the national parks may all shut down again and that the most interesting and attractive places to visit will be inaccessible. Moreover, she's concerned that if there are significant Covid outbreaks, interstate travel may be shut down and all campgrounds closed. We might still be able to find HipCamp sites or Boondockerswelcome.com sites... but who knows?

So... I would be most interested to hear the thoughts of you experienced RVers. Perhaps many of you at this moment are on the road and camping out all across our expansive country. Do you perceive traveling now to be risky, reckless or even crazy? Or is it a completely manageable risk?

Obviously, there are advantages to traveling by RV during a pandemic. You avoid restaurants and motels and the exposures they include. But if draconian restrictions are imposed on travel, and if most of the key national parks and monuments are closed along with campgrounds, that would be a deal-killer... wouldn't it? I know you can boondock on BLM land and some of that land might be gorgeous, but I don't know anything about how to find attractive BLM land to camp on. I have this mental image that oil well digging and strip mining are proceeding full-steam-ahead on public lands under the current administration and that camping there would be akin to staying in downtown Newark... but perhaps it's not as extreme as that.

Anyway, please share your thoughts. Would you head out west this winter or not?

Thanks!
congratulations-i live in east Texas. my cousin(from Idaho) just traveled down in August, across the southwest, and hit several National Parks & state Parks. Check the internet(obviously) Texas website for park status( Texas Parks & Wildlife Department: Texas State Parks). In Texas a lot of the state parks are 'open' to RV'ing(with covid restritctions. when Bill visited Big Bend national park it was "open" in parts however will need a reservation. RGV rv campground is open, need a reservations. I can tell you the lakes/parks are pretty 'full' most weekends since everyone tries to get out of the house
 
Your mental image is off. Regarding BLM lands and other free sites, the problem is not the government, but people. With COVID there are a lot of new RVers who are leaving trash, dumping their tanks on the ground and ruining it for everybody else. Even in a campground I saw a couple from CA who bought an RV and were moving to Austin, TX and they had their sewer hose connected to the coach and left on the ground without connecting it to the sewer hole.

i'm so glad to hear they are moving to my home state...ugh..hopefully they will learn how to use the RV better before they arrive.
 
Thanks, everyone, for the quality observations. Obviously, it makes sense to research destinations on the internet beforehand and take sensible precautions when traveling. There's a large private campground a few miles from us in Freeport, Maine, that we walked through today. We go there every often because it's situated alongside Casco Bay and has some nice trails along the water and through the woods. There were people camping in trailers, tents, pop-ups and a couple of motorhomes. I'd say it was maybe 20 percent full... on a beautiful crisp early October day.

Then my dream van, a 2020 LTV Unity came lumbering along. As they passed, I said "I love your Unity- nice van!". The guy and his wife stopped and offered to show it to us. We donned our masks and he gave us a little tour. They were from Ohio and this was their first big road trip in it. He said he'd had no problems with the van, except no one had told him about replenishing DEF fluid for the Mercedes diesel, and he had to figure out what was wrong when the warning light eventually flashed.

Well, next week we pick up or Winnebago Fuse rental and drive over to VT for a few days. We'll see how our first RV trip goes... can't wait.
 

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