A COVID Cross Country Road Trip: North Carolina to California in 8 Days

Caitlinepstein415/ August 30, 2020/ United States/ 0 comments

Each fall, LIU Global seniors spread out across the globe, from Indonesia to Argentina, to work as interns with international organizations and conduct research on a myriad of issues. This year, those plans went out the window with the coronavirus pandemic. So, instead of flying to Bosnia and Bali, my classmate Lilli and I drove across the country from North Carolina to California to work with SNAG Magazine, an independent media organization that promotes indigenous rights and aids Native youth. Here’s a look at our route across the country.

Planning

We officially found out that we would need to stay in the US for the semester in early July, and after that we began planning our journey. We decided on a more northern route on our way to California, and will likely take a southern route back to North Carolina in December.

To plan the route, I stared at a map of the U.S. for a long time, thinking about places I wanted to see. I also used the Roadtrippers app, which allowed me to input waypoints into a map and see things like how long the route was and how much gas may be.

There is a free version of the app, but I paid $25 for the one year subscription so that I could add more waypoints, get a gas estimate for my car make and model, and explore accommodations and sites along the route for our trip across the country in August and back home in December.

Money Matters

Accommodations: $91 total, $46 pp, although it was only this low thanks to our parents gifting us some hotel points for 3 of our nights.

Activities: $46 total for both of us, $27 for me and $19 for Lilli, but we saved some money getting into National Parks with our $80 National Parks annual pass

Gas: $213 total, $107 pp

Miscellaneous (takeout, gas station snacks, tolls): $50

A Rough Total: $230

COVID-19 Precautions

Obviously, travel during the COVID-19 pandemic is not ideal. However, we needed to drive across because our internship is in a remote area of Sonoma County and a car is necessary for getting around and getting groceries and such. So, we planned to take the following precautions.

• Wearing a clean mask each day in all public places. Not every state we passed through had mask orders, so we saw a lot of people without them, but we made sure to wear them ourselves to protect others.
• Using a heck of a lot of hand sanitizer. We had two spray bottles of hand sanitizer that we toted around to make sure that we kept our hands clean.
• Using a keychain to open doors and touch keypads. The keychain is designed with a hook for doors and a squishy bit at the end to avoid touching as many surfaces as possible.
•  Camping in several locations in order to be socially distant.
• Eating meals we cooked while camping, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at rest stops for lunch, and takeout to avoid restaurants as much as possible.
• Getting a COVID test upon arrival in California.
• Socially isolating for two weeks upon arrival in California.

 

The Route

Day 1

Concord, NC to Nashville, TN

7 hours, 433 miles

Accommodations: A campsite on the Bhavana Farm, a local farm in Nashville with tent sites in the woods on their property. I booked the site through Hip Camp for $13, but had a $10 off promo code, so it only cost $3 for the night! The women that run the farm were super nice, and the campsite was bare bones (no water, electricity, or bathrooms), but it was a great spot for my first ever night camping.

Day 2

Nashville, TN to St.Louis, MO

5 hours, 295 miles

Accommodations: We stayed with a family friend of Lilli’s who so kindly gave up her adorable one bedroom apartment for us for the night.

Pit Stops:

The Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area, known for its Elk & Bison Prairie. We stopped here on our way to St.Louis to eat lunch and look for some elk and bison. Unfortunately, all we saw was some wild turkeys, but it was still a beautiful stop. The recreation area is free to visit but the Elk & Bison prairie is $5 a car.

The Gateway Arch. Although the trams to the top were closed due to COVID, we were able to walk around the arch and through the visitors center. The arch is free to walk around and the visitor center is free but requires a timed ticket.

Day 3

St.Louis, MO to Wilson, KS

6.5 hours, 468 miles

Accommodations: A campsite that shares land with a decommissioned Cold War-era missile silo. I found this quirky and interesting site on AirBnB, and it was worth the steepest price we paid for accommodations the entire trip – $68 for the night. We set our tent up on a beautiful section of the 24 acres of land that the host had, and then enjoyed a super fascinating tour of the missile silo that the host has plans to refurbish into an eco resort. The site is available on AirBnB and Hip Camp on weekends.

Pit Stop:

The Lessman Farm and Truckhenge. This weird and funky spot is just outside of Topeka, Kansas, and was so, so worth a stop. Truckhenge is a free art installation of painted trucks standing up a la Stonehenge, created by the farm’s owners after some fights with the city, and it has now blown up into an eclectic and punny mishmash of art.

 

Day 4

Wilson, KS to Denver, CO

5.5 hours, 400 miles

Accommodations: A DoubleTree Hilton hotel just outside of Denver. Shout out to Lilli’s dad for gifting us his hotel points!

Pit Stop:

Giant Van Gogh Painting. So it turns out that in Western Kansas, Goodland, Kansas to be exact, is an 80 foot tall easel and recreation of Van Gogh’s ‘Three Sunflowers in a Vase’ painting. Definitely worth the one minute detour off the highway.

Red Rocks Amphitheater. This beautiful amphitheater situated in the red rocks outside of Denver is free to visit and was well worth the drive just outside of the city. It made for a good socially distant activity in the city.

Day 5

Denver, CO to Custer, SD

6 hours, 354 miles

Accommodations: The Echo Valley Campground and RV Park. This campground was located within view of the Crazy Horse Memorial and had beautiful campsites with fire rings and access to water and bathrooms. It was lovely and $21 for the night.

Pit Stops:

The Crazy Horse Memorial. This memorial to Crazy Horse, the great Lakota leader, can be seen from a distance driving into Custer as it is absolutely huge. Right now, the carving only includes his face and one of his hands, but the carving is set to be the largest mountain carving in the world when completed. It is so large that all of the Mount Rushmore carving could fit in Crazy Horse’s Hair. The memorial also includes a museum and film, and is $12 a person to visit. We also opted to take a $4 bus ride closer to the memorial.

Mount Rushmore. So even though this monument is an utter disgrace because a KKK leader carved the faces of slave owners that happened to be U.S. presidents into a sacred site, I went to see it while I was in the area.

Day 6

Custer, SD to Emigrant, MT

8.5 hours, 535 miles

Accommodations: The Carbella Recreation Site. This recreation site is a beautiful area of land with campsites with fire rings and picnic tables as well as a bathroom just north of Yellowstone National Park, and because it is managed by the Bureau of Land Management, it’s free! This was one of the most beautiful campsites of the trip, and it was free!

Pit Stop:

Devils Tower National Monument. The United States’ first national monument, Devils Tower is this huge rock formation thing that I can’t tell you much about except that it looks super cool and that the area has a bunch of super cute prairie dogs. It costs $25 to visit, but we have a National Parks Annual Pass that got us in for free.

Day 7

Emigrant, MT to Salt Lake City, UT

9 hours, 454 miles

Accommodations: A SpringHill Suites by Mariott hotel in East Salt Lake City. (Thanks mom for the hotel points!).

Pit Stops:

Yellowstone National Park. We drove all the way around Yellowstone National Park, stopping at turnouts to admire the beautiful views and see some well-known features of the park like the Mammoth Hot Springs, Old Faithful, and bison. The park costs $35 to enter, but we got in for free with our National Parks annual pass.

Grand Teton National Park. Like with Yellowstone, we drove through this stunning National Park, stopping along the way to take in the views of the incredible mountains. This park also costs $35 to enter, but we did not come across anywhere to pay coming from Yellowstone.

Day 8

Salt Lake City, UT to Reno, NV

7 hours, 515 miles

Accommodations: A Hampton Inn hotel once again courtesy of Lilli’s dad’s hotel points. Our original plan was to stay at a campsite near Lake Tahoe, but we had some concerns about fires in the area, so we opted for a hotel.

Pit Stop:

Bonneville Salt Flats. About an hour and a half west of Salt Lake City are huge expanses of salt flats that are blindingly white and an absolutely beautiful spot to wander around for a bit. This area is managed by the Bureau of Land Management and is free to visit.

Day 9

Reno, NV to the Bay Area of CA

3 hours, 192 miles

The end of the road! We drove to Vallejo, California to our AirBnB for our first couple of nights in the area and got free COVID tests through Carbon Health.

Before we started this trip I was really intimidated by the idea of driving so far and for so long. I actually kind of hate driving….but anyways, it ended up being great. By the time we made it to Denver, we were used to driving hours on end and enjoyed watching the scenery change from region to region. I was definitely ready to get settled again after over a week of being on the move, but I’m also already excited for the road trip we’ll take back across in December.