How to Safely Road Trip During COVID-19: WHERE To Go

In this road trip series, I’m going to cover the WHERE, WHEN, WHAT, and HOW of planning a road trip during the coronavirus.

Today we’ll be focusing on the WHERE.

If you’re excited about getting out of the house and looking at something besides the same four walls that we’ve all been staring at since March 2020, read on!

FACTORS THAT AFFECT WHERE YOU CAN GO

During the strange times we’re living in right now, you need to find out where you can go and the “where” is based on:

• the current status of the state(s) that you want to visit
• whether they are open only for essential travel or for leisure travel as well
• whether they’re accepting out-of-state visitors with:
  • no restrictions
  • requiring out-of-state visitors to quarantine upon arrival, OR
  • if they’re allowing out-of-state visitors with a negative COVID-19 test

So as you can see, there’s a LOT to consider!

RESOURCES FOR FINDING OUT ABOUT TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS

Two of the websites that I go to when I want information about the states, the different requirements, and the status of opening and closing are the:

• CDC website
• The New York Times website

CDC WEBSITE

First, let’s go over the CDC website. There’s a page on the CDC website called State and Territorial Health Department Websites.

To use it, go to the page for the state that you LIVE IN, not the state that you want to visit, and check to see if there are any restrictions for related to the state(s) that you want to visit and if you have to quarantine when you come back.

For example, if I lived in Pennsylvania, I’d go to the Pennsylvania page, scroll down to “Travelers,” and click on the link. the page that comes up is called “Information for Travelers.” It’s updated regularly as you can see by the date.

And it says “If you’ve traveled to the following states, it’s recommended you quarantine 14 days upon return.” Then it lists the states where there’s a higher risk of contracting COVID-19.

The New York Times Website

The New York Times website has a page called See How All 50 States Are Reopening (and Closing Again).

This covers the 50 states and Washington, DC, but not the territories (with the exception of Puerto Rico). And it’s updated fairly regularly. It’s also color-coded by the status of each state.

I’m going to use Pennsylvania again just because I recently traveled there. Before I went to Pennsylvania, I came to this page.

It’s an interactive map, so what you do is you click on the state that you want to visit to see detailed status information about the state including:

• a graph showing the trend of coronavirus cases in the state
• status changes that were made and the dates they went into effect
• what’s open (restaurants, houses of worship, etc.)

After reviewing the information on both of these sites, I was very comfortable going to Pennsylvania as an out-of-state visitor since I was fully informed before my trip.

When you are considering travel, I recommend going to both of these websites.

If you haven’t already done so, be sure to watch my interview with JC Nordyke of CarCareIQ.com on how to make sure your car is road-trip ready because that is an essential part of road trip planning.