ROAD TRIP: West Coast to East Coast
Updated: Aug 1, 2021
PART I: Making this trip happen
Why this road trip?
It all started with my desire to see the Grand Canyon. This had been a goal of mine since I moved out West. I kept thinking to myself, I am so close, I must go to the Grand Canyon.
And as most things when you live somewhere, life takes over and grand ideas and adventures keep getting pushed away into the future. When I ultimately made the decision to move back east there was no way I was going to go back without having done what I had promised myself I would do. I live by the code: Dreams are just plans I have to make.
I want to acknowledge my privilege to be able to travel and explore the world the way that I do. I hope that being completely transparent and sharing the ways I have found access will help inspire you and encourage creative ways to explore the world in your own way.
Planning:
Unexpected variables:
I knew my starting point (Oregon) and my final destination (Maine). So, the planning first started with tracing out all potential routes. There are so many options when you are literally traveling from one coast to another. This part was probably the most fun, ya know before I had to put together all the logistics.
I put in hours and hours of research to narrow down potential stops for the journey. This was all before COVID-19 hit the US. My original plan looked a lot different. It had stops to visit actual friends and family.
When Corona hit, my plans were completely thrown up into the air. I didn’t even know how or if school was going to happen. Plus, all the national parks that I had spent countless hours researching were shut down, as well as most of the campgrounds across the country.
There were so many unknowns that it looked like my trip might actually not happen.
To be honest, I’m not sure there could have been worse timing for a trip like this… but I did it anyway knowing the risks and knowing that nothing was guaranteed.
Notes on National Parks:
Because of the nature of how the government had handled the pandemic (denial and a priority on reopening the economy ASAP), some of if not most of all the National Parks I wanted to go to were reopening in some capacity by July of 2020.
There were some services closed or new policies in place, like reserving a day pass to enter the park to control crowds (Yosemite National Park). With this in mind, I recommend going to each individual national park site that you plan on going to and see if there are any requirements they have before entering. You do not want to drive all the way there to get turned away.
For instance, Mammoth Caves in KY, it’s free to enter this park, however in order to enter the caves you have to reserve a cave tour ($18). I witnessed several people show up thinking they could just join a tour. They were turned away and it was not easy to see the disappointment on their faces. Now, it’s not required that you make a reservation ahead of time, but strongly recommended since the cave tours are so popular.
Fire Permits:
If you plan on disperse camping (primitive camping on sanctioned sections of free land to set up a camp), it’s also important to research and find out about the state’s fire restrictions. This is especially important on the west coast where the climate is dry. Forest fires are not to be trifled with. At a paid campground, they should have all the information on their fire restrictions and how to safely put it out at the entrance of the grounds.
California was the only state where I had to get a permit to have a campfire and use my camp stove. The permit process is simple. Truly, all I did was watch a video on fire safety and the risks and then took a simple multiple-choice quiz. It’s free. They send you a certificate (I made sure I had it printed out) and your good to go.
Organization & Notification:
In order to keep all this information organized, I opted to use a travel journal. I dedicated a page per stop (18 stops) that included the date, what activities I wanted to do (hike names or experiences), where I was staying and any other notes like costs of any permits I had to get, etc.
Once I had all my stops, where I was staying and my route figured out, an important step, not to be overlooked, is contacting the bank and letting them know of your travel plans. I spoke with a teller who had me tell them each state I was going to be in over the following three weeks of my road trip.
If I hadn’t called and reported all this to them, seeing the charges from all over the country likely would have flagged my debit card for fraud. charges and they might have suspended my account. While off grid, I wasn’t going to risk having no way to call the bank to verify the charges and have no access to emergency funds if I needed them.
The bank is unlikely to shut off your card if you are in a relatively benign radius of where you live. For example, if you live in Maine, they are not going to care if you are suddenly shopping somewhere else in New England.
Navigation:
Google maps was how I started configuring this whole adventure.
It was instrumental for searching around areas I was stopping at. Once I had each stop and where I was staying laid out, I printed directions to each specific destination. This is key!! Because, while most of the world has cell service, not all parts of these remote areas deep in the mountains and forest are going to have service.
If you refresh or accidentally exit out of the google maps app, you will lose your navigation. This is not a good thing when you are likely the only car on some random winding road deep in the mountains. Having those print outs gave me solace that if I lost connection with my navigation I had a back up plan. And I definitely ended up needing my backups!
In addition to the google printouts of my route, I also got an atlas of the United States that I mapped out each route. I put little post it notes that stuck out like tabs and numbers indicating the stop to easily be able to flip open that page if I was in a pinch on the road. This atlas was the back up to my back up and I ended up needing it.
Not to mention, having an atlas can also be helpful when your plans need to abruptly change, and you don’t know exactly how to reroute or what to do.
Ultimately, in the end, I planned everything as much as I could and had to leave the rest up to whatever came up day-to-day. I camped often and spent a few nights in hotels to ensure a shower and access internet when I had school. Yes, I actually started graduate school on the road *face palm*.
COMMENT BELOW : Share any experiences of your own road trips or questions for planning your own road trip!
