Did you have a trip cancelled due to COVID-19? Is being stuck in quarantine driving you crazy?
After 3 months of various stay-at-home orders, I’ve come up with 5 Ways For Wanderlusts to Survive Quarantine
1. Visit Your State's National Parks
- Every U.S. State and territory has at least 1 National Park Service site, yet most people I've met have never been to the site(s) in their own state. With the NPS open again, I recommend knocking out every NPS site in your state or within a day's round-trip drive from your home. Use this Google Map to find the sites closest to you!
2. Road Trips
- Speaking of drives, what better time for the Great American Road Trip than when we have an entire summer wanting Wide Open Spaces (song below to listen to as you read the rest of this list). If your international trip or domestic flight was cancelled, climb in the car for a good 'ole fashioned road trip with snacks/food you brought from home and can cook on your own camp grill at a socially distanced picnic table.
3. Working Out
- Especially if you've packed on the Quarantine 15, what better way to use this time than getting in shape to wow your friends at the next sanctioned pool party or beach trip? I started running on March 28 with a goal of seeing all 180 parks in my city of Minneapolis (another system of parks people tend to overlook!). Training that started with nearby parks has me now reaching those up to 9 miles away, and I'm planning on running 250+ miles across the state of Minnesota this September! A COVID-proof adventure, because I'll be staying in an RV along the way and never have to come in contact with another person if I don't want to.
Learn more here: https://www.mikahmeyer.com/runacrossmn
4. Read Travel Books
- Any wanderlust worth their weight in frequent flier miles has a bookshelf or audiobook library full of titles we've wanted to read. Now's the perfect time to learn more about the history of destinations you want to visit ASAP when life returns to normal, or to discover new destinations. Reading Robyn Davidson's book Tracks about walking across the Australian desert has inspired me to circumnavigate Australia by RV once it's safe--A journey I wouldn't have thought about without reading the book!
5. Check Out Your State Parks
- Niagara Falls State Park in New York
- Dead Horse Point State Park in Utah
- Nā Pali Coast State Wilderness Park in Hawaii
You don't just have to go to national parks to experience beauty (trust me, I've been to them all): Some of America's most beautiful landscapes are State Parks.
If you're leery of leaving your state due to staying in hotels, traveling outside your health insurance network, or being stuck in quarantine for 2 weeks upon your return (Hawaii), check out all the offerings of your state park system. In my state of Minnesota we have 75 State Parks, meaning I could visit one per day starting July 4th and still not finish by Labor Day. That's a whole summer's worth of adventure in my backyard.
And hopefully after accomplishing more nearby travel goals, it'll be time to set out into the great yonder again...
How are you surviving quarantine? Let me know in the comments!