Camping during a pandemic
We’ve been missing travel A LOT and since most borders are closed to US Citizens right now, we instead decided to go camping, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Yes, our parents weren’t thrilled but we assured them we’d take all precautions necessary. Safely navigating Corona Virus and camping, while enjoying the great outdoors, was thankfully not as tricky as we thought.
The state of camping
Turns out that not all state parks or campgrounds are open, which means that the ones that are open are likely to be more crowded, aka not good for social distancing. In general, all the places we saw, even the ones we didn’t stay at, were clean, following mask guidelines and felt quite safe. (Well, as safe as you can feel from a little virus you can’t see, smell or touch.) Since we didn’t know how crowded campsites would be, we intentionally didn’t make reservations. This way we could checkout the campgrounds before deciding our stay. Additionally, we took our little camping trip in October 2020 because we knew that sites would be less crowded than in the summer. And we picked the northern coast of California and parts of Oregon, as our destination. We heard it can get cold and windy this time of the year and is less enticing for crowds. Thankfully, all the parks, beaches and campgrounds we visited were not very crowded.
Camping and Masks
All the campgrounds we stayed at required masks for common areas such as the check-in area, washing areas and bathrooms. In some, a few of the amenities were closed because of Covid-19. For us, we carried our mask with us always. Yes, we were outdoors but you never know when things might get congested. Although most of the time we didn’t wear our masks, we did have them handy if any neighbors approached; when we bought firewood for our fire pit; and every time we visited the bathroom. While we are on the mask topic (shameless plug) check out our post about How to clean your face mask while traveling. We even have a short video of how we washed our face masks on our first hotel stay since Covid-19.
Try to bring everything you need (sans firewood)
We tried our best to bring almost all the things we’d need, particularly food. We were careful to make as few pit stops as possible to avoid contact with people; our one exception was firewood. Bringing wood from one area to another could potentially bring in a disease or a new tree killing insect species. Best tip is to always buy firewood close to where you’ll burn it. All in all we only forgot a few minor things and thankfully the convenience store at the campground had us covered.
What about the bathrooms?
Our biggest concern was how clean bathrooms would be. We brought lots of sanitizer but to our relief all the bathrooms were spotless. We always wear flip flops to shower and this time was no exception, the only thing we added is a good disinfecting spray after the shower - in hindsight, we probably should’ve always been doing this. Toilets were very clean too, possibly because the campsites we picked were not busy at all. Like with all public toilets in these new times, we’d wear our masks and wash our hands extra long, then we’d use a little hand sanitizer back at the camp site for good measure. We were prepared to go many days without a shower, thinking that would be the worst bit, fortunately we didn’t have to.
Social distancing
6 foot rule still applied in all the campsites we stayed at. In common areas, like children’s playgrounds, the dishwashing area, laundry area and outdoor trails, all guests we encountered wore masks and maintained 6 feet distancing while awaiting their turn. If you camp remote you are already socially distancing so you won’t have to worry about any of this but if you are a friendly, outgoing person who likes to talk to your neighbors when camping, then your socializing soul might suffer a little bit. All in all, everyone we met followed the rules and not begrudgingly, which was nice.
Sites, souvenirs & other touristy places
You’ve maneuvered your campsite, the bathroom and other common areas and now you want to visit some of the more touristy spots in your park or region you are visiting, what does that look like? In general we picked these sites very carefully but didn’t obsess too much. If the site was very full, we’d just skip it. Our camping was relatively local and if we really want to see a particular place, returning won’t be that difficult. Our advice is, if a particular place or location is very important in your must-see-list, then plan your visit to avoid the crowds and stay safe.
What did we miss?
Thankfully we were pretty prepared and didn’t miss many things. That said we did do a lot of reading, these are 2 articles we found especially useful and to the point:
What we did miss was being able to visit more local restaurants and shops that were either closed or upon consideration we determined it really was an unnecessary risk. We find this a small price to pay given our times and we feel incredibly grateful that we could getaway for a few days.
We hope you found this blog post helpful. As always, if you have any questions, comments or tips, please leave them in comment section below. Until our next post, stay safe, stay healthy and let’s keep dreamin’ about travel to far away exotic lands (can you see how much we miss traveling?).