Travel Plans Shift West

A story about how a couple had to adapt their van life travel plans due to COVID-19 restrictions.

"We were originally planning to start by going up the west coast from San Francisco to Oregon and Washington state. However, much of the land is currently closed in Oregon, and since we're starting a month later than planned, we're going to skip that for now and do it on the back end of our trip.

Instead, we're heading to Montana and Idaho first to visit national forests. It's pretty confusing because it's not like all national forests are closed right now. Some states are choosing to close the developed campsites in their national forests, while others are keeping them open. You really have to go forest by forest to see what's going on.

What I have found is that most national forests are open to dispersed camping, which means you can drive your van somewhere on this huge piece of land and camp alone. That's what our trip will look like, especially in the beginning. There might be some states that are reopening, maybe small towns in Montana we can check out while being careful. But with the pandemic still raging, we'll mostly be isolated. We might even stay in one national forest for two weeks at a time, hiking and exploring before moving on."