When COVID-19 hit, Mary and Scott Hercik-Sladek started canceling camping and festival camping reservations. Partly to cut back a bit, partly out of a healthy concern about getting sick, they pulled the plugs on all their events. Even if they wanted to camp, managers at parks, campgrounds, and other campsites, at least those that were open, everyone was saying, “Camp at your own risk.” Who wants to risk that?
In time, when COVID seemed to chill a bit, they decided to hitch up the trailer and head out – with their fear in check. “Once we finally started camping again, it instantly became our escape from the world of COVID,” she said. “Since it’s just Scott and I, we can go from our home to the campground and back home without having to speak to another soul.”
It’s not about being anti-social. It’s about being safe.
This spring, parks were closed and festivals were postponed. Come summer, campers were heading back out again. Even though COVID cases were rising, so were camper’s and music festival goers’ frustration with having missed the entire spring and some of the summer season of roadtripping, concerts, and music festivals.
So come fall, some decided to head out, whether believing it’s safe, or with a “damn the torpedoes” shrug, or that theory that there’s been nothing to fear all along (though none admitted it here).
Walking the grounds of the Okeechobee Music Festival in Central Florida the first weekend in March, my daughter and I could feel the enthusiasm of the campers beneath the pine trees. It was a grand setting, though something was lurking amid the Purell stands and hand-washing stations.
Little did we know we’d pretty much be hitting the first – and last – festival of the 2020 season. One of the first post-COVID is the Suwannee Live Golf Cart Drive In at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park in Live Oak, Florida.
COVID took no prisoners. Veteran stand-up comic Colin Quinn is a time-hardened road warrior. He’s hit 47 out of the 50 states, and speaks of the roadtipping livestyle – and the quirks of the state’s he’s visited along the way in his new book, Overstated: A Coast-to-Coast Roast of the 50 States.
He calls Vermont “The Old Hippie,” Florida “The Hot Mess,” and his home state of New York, “The quiet state with the city that never shuts up.”
Quinn was writing the book when COVID struck. Blocked from the road and his clubs shuttered, he learned the new normal. He taped an HBO comedy special at a Brooklyn drive-in theater – a popular concept for such bands as Goose, Gov’t Mule, Bush, 311, and a roster of others.
We’re all road-blocked from roadtripping. So what did we do?
#RoadtripMojo put out an ask: Have you headed out? Are you planning to? What convinced you to – or not to – camp again during the pandemic? What have you learned?
Campers replied with their lessons learned. Members of the Coachmen Freedom Express Facebook group were making up for lost time. Tammy Balda Cox said several planned international trips were cancelled. So they bought their Coachmen Freedom Express 192 RBS this year. They’d hoped to do it as empty-nesters. Instead, they moved up the timeline.
“It’s something we wanted as our kids left the nest. We just did it a little earlier,” she said. “For us it gives us the chance for a change from the norm.”
To Kenneth Simmons, camping is outdoors – unlike hitting a hotel room and wondering if it was properly cleaned. Camping is “so relatively safe from the coronavirus,” he said. “I’ve been able to meet new people while keeping a safe distance.”
Caution included choosing campgrounds that require masks in the store, where the bathrooms are sanitized and garbage is emptied throughout the day, and campsites are well spaced, said Beverly Slocum.
To camp, or not to camp? Amber Connell didn’t give it much thought. She just did what they always do – with a bit more caution. They’ve always been campers and have owned an RV for four years.
“We were a little more discerning in our locations. We avoided cities and populated areas,” she said. “While we were traveling, we used our RV bathroom instead of public facilities. We brought our food in and did not dine out.”
Michael Hippensteel has been an outdoors person all his life. His parents used to take the family camping, where he’d hunt, fish, and tent camp. Now, he hikes, bikes and camps from his recently purchased travel trailer.
He’s glad to be camping, but joked that he’s waiting for the newbies who flocked to the parks to “go back to what you were doing before so we can have our places back.”
Doesn’t really matter to Hippensteel. “Most of the places I go aren’t as popular,” he said. “I have been avoiding the popular places.”
Some are still waiting. Sam and Sharon Wark in March picked up a sweet Alto Safari Condo teardrop camper with a retractable roof – just in time for Coronavirus to shut down camping. A few months later, Sam reflected on the season.
They normally pack up the truck, throw on their roof top tent and head to the woods. With the new trailer ordered, they booked four big trips with weekend trips scattered in between.
“It was going to be a great year,” he said. Their trailer arrived four days before COVID, effectively shutting down the season for the immuno-compromised camper. When they eventually ventured out, they found campgrounds were packed tight. The Vancouver residents only made it out once this year – and it was late in the season.
“We’re looking forward to the day when we will be able to travel freely between the borders and campsites,” he said.
Optimism abounds. A frequent festival goer at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music park, Don Raymond hopes to get back out. “We have many booked,” he said. “When you’re at the campsite. Feels like nothing is wrong with the world.”
Mary and Scott tow their Evergreen I-Go Pro trailer, so they never have to step foot in the campground bathhouse or other facilities; they’ve learned to make it four days without having to dump their tanks. Upcoming adventures include a trip to Georgia’s Fort Yargo State Park, a first-of-its-kind, socially distance festival ReVibe Wellness Retreat, a trip to Florida’s Fort McAllister, and a getaway to Fort Mountain State Park.
“In my opinion, camping is the safest way to vacation in our COVID world,” she said. “I’m SO happy we purchased our camper when we did.”