Will Coronavirus change your RV summer plans ??

[hmantractors]

Yes, canceled reservations for a 6 week trip to Yellowstone and the Tetons in September and October. Today the governor of Indiana shut down all private and state campgrounds till the end of April. So we have lost at least one week of local camping. So camping in backyard.

[Overtaxed]

Thoughts are with the full timers. We are campers and going out as often as we feel . . . when park space available. This is the big problem with schools closed, and COE closed down, most of the State parks in Texas we have attempted to visit are booked solid like summer. Don't know why COE closed their parks, as human interaction there is minimal, but they did. Few places better to be during this ting than camping. Stay safe.

That's the thing that kind of kills me about this, let's close lots of campground which has the effect of, wait for it, driving density higher in the remaining campgrounds. And density is the issue here, not RV's and not driving around in your car. What would make sense here would be much more "Camping permitted on more public land, remain dispersed" rather than pushing all those who are full time or those trying to vacation into a smaller area (increasing density). A lot of people who live in really dense areas and have a camper, the best thing that we can do is get those people out of there, reducing density in their area and putting them into a low density area.

Now, I'm new to camping, maybe 10 nights total so far. But in those 10 nights, with the exception of check in (which absolutely, as a safety measure, should be online/e-mail only), in those 100's of hours in campgrounds, I've spent exactly 0 minutes within 5 feet of another person. Usually not within 20. And every single time I was within any distance of another person, it was outside (again, reduction of density of particles that could carry COVID). If they'd just open the land for dispersed camping, well, you could go weeks and not see another soul if you're allowed to find a place to park and hunker down. It just makes no sense. Same thing with closing trails/hiking. I do a lot of hiking, and, in all those 100's of hours hiking, I've spend minutes within 5 feet of another person (who wasn't hiking with me).

It's crazy, sure, best case, none of us move 10 feet from where we are right now. That's clearly the safest thing, but it's also not going to happen.

[theburgerts]

The NM governor announced yesterday lots of additional closings.

But the interesting one, and not really sure of the impact, is that RV parks should only operate at no more than 25% capacity.

Haven't been able to find any more detail on it, like how that can be enforced, or who patrols RV parks. We are FT, and currently have been here in this one RV park for about a year, and there are others here too who are FT. It's not a huge park, so a 25% max would effect even the current FT population. Everyone here, and I mean everyone, FT'ers as well as others passing through, do everything to maintain the appropriate social distancing.

I'm guessing that as the non-FT'ers depart, there will not be any new people coming in, even for one night.

Sad...



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[avf100]

That's the thing that kind of kills me about this, let's close lots of campground which has the effect of, wait for it, driving density higher in the remaining campgrounds. And density is the issue here, not RV's and not driving around in your car. What would make sense here would be much more "Camping permitted on more public land, remain dispersed" rather than pushing all those who are full time or those trying to vacation into a smaller area (increasing density). A lot of people who live in really dense areas and have a camper, the best thing that we can do is get those people out of there, reducing density in their area and putting them into a low density area.

Now, I'm new to camping, maybe 10 nights total so far. But in those 10 nights, with the exception of check in (which absolutely, as a safety measure, should be online/e-mail only), in those 100's of hours in campgrounds, I've spent exactly 0 minutes within 5 feet of another person. Usually not within 20. And every single time I was within any distance of another person, it was outside (again, reduction of density of particles that could carry COVID). If they'd just open the land for dispersed camping, well, you could go weeks and not see another soul if you're allowed to find a place to park and hunker down. It just makes no sense. Same thing with closing trails/hiking. I do a lot of hiking, and, in all those 100's of hours hiking, I've spend minutes within 5 feet of another person (who wasn't hiking with me).

It's crazy, sure, best case, none of us move 10 feet from where we are right now. That's clearly the safest thing, but it's also not going to happen.

Like you stated these closures make no sense. The BLM has closed a lot of the off road riding areas in Calif. And probably in other states as well. These are wide open areas in the desert.

[Overtaxed]

Like you stated these closures make no sense. The BLM has closed a lot of the off road riding areas in Calif. And probably in other states as well. These are wide open areas in the desert.

Having been on some BLM areas in CA, I have to agree with you, there's NOTHING out there. Density in a lot of those areas might be 5 people per sq/mile. Pretty hard to get within 1000 feet of another person, let alone 5.

I kind of get it. Perfect case, we all close our front doors and don't reopen them again for a few weeks/months. But that's just not going to happen, people don't work that way and this virus doesn't have a high enough death rate to get people to operate as if it's a death sentence. If it was Ebola, or another virulent disease with a huge death rate, you might get different reactions. But, COVID is only "moderately deadly" as diseases come, if you get it, you have about a 1-50 chance of dying (and it may be lower than that). It's just good enough "odds" that people don't take it as seriously as they should.

Anyway, knowing human behavior, we should be encouraging steps that people actually WILL take, not putting forth the perfect and expecting people to follow that. Close all the public parks, do the people with RV's just go home (assuming they have a home at all beyond the RV)? No, they pile into the remaining private parks, increasing density. Close all the parks (private and public) in NC, do all those people stay home? No, they all come to SC and camp there, increasing density. Mark parks an "essential business", encourage them all to stay open if possible (not require, encourage; and with appropriate measures, you should NEVER be interacting with a person to check in or during your stay; if you need propane, drop the tanks, step back 15 feet, they fill them, then reverse the process, for example) and open up more dispersed/remote areas for camping, and what do you get? Parks at very low occupancy levels and tons of space between people. Which is EXACTLY what you want to slow the spread of a pandemic, not more people crammed into smaller and smaller areas. Look at the "hot spots" for COVID right now in the US, nearly every single one of them is in a city; the higher the density, the higher the infection/death rates. Density, density, density. That's the predictive number for how serious the spread of the virus is. Anything "dense" should be the targets here (and, in many ways, have been for many of the measures, airports, playgrounds, schools, etc).

SC recently went to a "stay at home" state. Outdoor activities are specifically called out as one of the few exceptions, which makes me pretty happy. Actually, most of the order for SC makes a lot of sense to me, absent one, "Attending religious services" is specifically called out as a reason to break quarantine, and also stands out as the only thing on the list where 100's-1000's of people get together in one "high density" area. I hope the churches in SC don't read that and hold service in person; yes, religion is important, even more so in a time like this, but please, go online to service! That's a very high risk activity that's still permitted.

[LivingAdventure]

Unfortunately I believe one of the reasons for closing dispersed camping areas is the hope that if people have nowhere fun to go, they’ll all stay home.


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[Overtaxed]

Unfortunately I believe one of the reasons for closing dispersed camping areas is the hope that if people have nowhere fun to go, they’ll all stay home.


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Take away the "safe fun" options from people and they will transition to "less safe, still fun" activities. No camping/hiking? Well, shoot, guess I'll go to Lowes then and work on my house. Except Lowes is FAR less safe than camping/hiking. Or, in SC, per what I wrote above, "Can't hike on Sunday, might as well go to church". That's madness. Add in SOME things are still open (including some trails) and what you wind up with, just like the campground situation, the trails that remain open are SLAMMED because most others are closed. The goal here really needs to be 2 fold, keep people at home as much as possible (which we are doing well) AND, when people lose it and need to venture out, make sure they are safe doing so (with "safe" measured by the density of the thing they are going to do). Here's another example, Lowes in my area just moved to reduced/restricted hours (closing a 6PM every night). Well, that sounds like a good idea, right? Not at all! I went by twice this weekend to pick something up, and both times, pulled into the parking lot and said "nope, not gonna do this". The place was SLAMMED, I've never seen it busier, because now, if you need a sheet of drywall or a faucet for your kitchen, you have 8 hours to get it instead of the 14 hours you used to have. The reduction in hours has caused the density, during the open hours, to skyrocket. Which, of course, greatly increases the risk; moving Lowes to 24x7 with skeleton crews on all shifts would be the best way to reduce density, but they are doing the exact opposite, now the "whole crew" (every cashier station, etc) is there for a shortened number of hours to deal with the massive influx in traffic, and the result, entirely predictable, is wildly increased density in Lowes most times of the day. Makes no sense, and works entirely counter to the goal of stopping the spread.

What should they do? Send everyone home, one way in, one way out of the store, one security guard at entrance and exits, 24x7, self checkout only. Now you've dramatically reduced the person/person contact and made everyone safer. But it seems we're moving the "other way" here, let's have Lowes only open for 1 hour a week and see what the traffic looks like in the store, right? I think we all know what that would look like, a complete madhouse. And yet, that's our "response" to this, keep reducing hours and availability of services so that the things that ARE open are massively crowded in the few hours available (or the few private campgrounds available, per my original point). That's really silly, and completely counter to what you want to achieve.

Perhaps the best example of "done right" today is gas stations. Very few of them have shut down and, given that almost all are 24x7, you wind up with tons of availability of fuel pumps given that demand has fallen dramatically and supply is the same. In practice, when I went to fill up the other day, I was the only person at the entire fuel island I was using (6 pumps to myself!). But if we took similar steps that we've been taking with campgrounds, "let's close 80% of the gas stations" guess what you'd have? Crazy number of people at the remaining gas stations that are open, exactly the thing that you DO NOT want.

[Bill G]

This is just the latest example of failed leadership in a crisis. ☹️

Probably best to keep personal politics out of this discussion and stick to facts known.

[droundtree]

Those of you planning to go forward with your plans will want to consider another issue: Wherever you are planning to go, especially if it is a tourist destination, you will want to check ahead to see how welcome you are going to be. For instance, here in Colorado if you go to any of the mountain resort towns you are going to get a reception ranging from lukewarm to openly hostile to, in the case of Gunnison County, being turned away at the county line. The mountain towns don't even want visitors from Denver because most of these areas already have a high incidence due to skiers bringing it in and they have limited health care resources. I assume that many other tourist destinations around the country are going to have the same attitude for at least another month. As far as our plans, our Solitude is living up to it's name: Our daughter, a nurse, is isolating in it parked out on an 8-acre plot of land to avoid infecting her family (one of her coworkers is in critical condition). So we don't really know when we will get it back.

[connoror]

I won't alter what we do or where we decide to go. IF there were a major outbreak someplace I would just change directions and keep going..
Do you stay home due to the flu outbreaks ? Lots of people die from the flu every year but that doesn't mean we all stay home.

Become aware and don't touch your face, eyes or mouth while out. Wash hands frequently. I always clean cart handles, the one time I forget I get a cold or some other bug going around. I'm not a germophobe by any means, but do my best to stay healthy

Yes, pay attention to clean anything you touch, especially clean your hands before touching your face, eyes or mouth. I did the same, but the new coronavirus is different from the flu. I decided to postpone my summer plan and stay at home. When I am alive and healthy, I can go wherever I want. Do n’t forget to bring your thermometer on the road: https://www.amazon.com/Infrared-Ther...dp/B086JP7FV9/ code: TMFP0250