Here Are Our Tentative Road Trip Plans For 2021

Shae and I started the year with all kinds of grand plans for where our road trip would take us – Mardi Gras, all of Utah’s National Parks, the Grand Canyon and more.

2020 had other plans.

While it’s been a disappointing ~9 months due to COVID, we’re still incredibly fortunate to be in the position we are. Although our travel’s been interrupted, we’ve been fortunate enough to have been spared the economic and health issues that so many other people are experiencing as a result of the pandemic.

Although life is far from being back to normal, 2021 is only a month away, so here’s what we’re planning for the next year of our road trip.

New Year

We shared recently that we’re planning on visiting New Orleans for New Year’s Eve. While that might sound reckless, we’re trying to travel as responsibly as we possibly can and won’t be partying or doing anything that would put us or others at risk, so check out this post for more about that.

What We’re Not Doing

We’d headed back to the east coast this year to be closer to Shae’s family and we’d originally been planning on spending next year visiting some of the states on the east coast we’d not spent any – or little – time in.

There was a problem with that though. We try to stay south in the winter and north in the summer so that we have temperate weather year-round. That’s even more important right now because COVID means we’re trying to stick to outdoor activities as best we can.

At the start of our road trip we visited South Carolina and Georgia, so the only warm weather east coast state in January and February would have been Florida. Unfortunately their Governor and many of its residents don’t seem to be taking the pandemic as seriously as they should. Although cases there aren’t skyrocketing like they were earlier this summer, Shae and I have zero desire to spend a couple of months there right now.

What We Are Doing

Seeing as we ruled out Florida but still wanted to be somewhere with good weather, we’ve decided to head back out west in the New Year. This is where our plans get a little murky right now.

I’m someone who’s very organized and likes to have stuff planned out. While we don’t book our accommodation much further out than 2-6 weeks, for the first three years of our road trip we’ve had a good idea of which states we’d be visiting each year and for how long.

If 2020 has taught us anything it’s that we need to be flexible, so flexible it is. We have a bunch of things in mind for places we want to visit, but aren’t setting anything in stone right now.

The main reason, as you might expect, is COVID. Even though there’s a vaccine on the horizon, there are concerns that things are going to get worse this winter before they get better. That could cause states to institute new lockdowns or put in place other travel restrictions.

With that in mind, here are some of the states under consideration:

New Mexico

When everything shut down back in March, we spent several weeks holed up in Albuquerque. We didn’t do much while we were there as everything was closed and we were even too concerned at the time about going hiking for the most part as there was still so much unknown about the coronavirus.

We’d therefore like to return to Albuquerque for a short time and then spend at least two weeks in Santa Fe. Shae and I would also like to visit Carlsbad for the caverns. We therefore thought about hitting up New Mexico first in the New Year, but apparently the caverns are closed right now and so we might have to leave that for another time.

Utah

My parents were due to fly over from the UK earlier this year to join us on the road trip. We’d planned to visit all five of Utah’s National Parks with them among other things, but COVID prevented that from happening.

With a focus on outdoor activities in 2021 though, Utah seems like it could be a great option – great weather for much of the year, lots of hiking, etc. We initially considered this for the start of 2021, but it looks like it stays cold there in January and February, so we’d likely visit Utah a little later in the year.

My parents are still hoping to come and visit us a couple of times on the road trip, so we’d head back to Utah with them again in the future. Visiting now would be beneficial as it means we can scope out all the National Parks and get a better idea of the best places to visit, walks/hikes to go on, etc.

Arizona

Arizona is another state we spent a few weeks in earlier this year. We really enjoyed it in Tucson, so we might head back there for a week or two. Sedona is meant to be beautiful, plus we’d like to visit the Grand Canyon again – something else we’d do again with my parents in the future.

California

If we want good weather in January and February, Southern California is a great option. We lived in Orange County from December 2009 to May 2010 and I loved the weather there.

The potential issue is that California’s Governor has been putting in place some tight restrictions due to COVID. While I’m glad he’s being far more proactive than some other state Governors, there’s no knowing right now if we’d even be allowed to visit depending on if they don’t allow visitors from certain other states.

This is therefore something we’ll have to play by ear. If we can find some reasonably priced accommodation options which can be cancelled with no penalty, this might be where we head first.

Idaho/Wyoming

I know they’re two completely different states, but our main reason for visiting one or both of them would be visit Yellowstone National Park which straddles the two. That was another place we were going to visit in 2020 before having to cancel our plans.

I’ve been following the Airstream Dog blog for a few months and they’ve been visiting Idaho and Wyoming recently. Both states look beautiful and there are tons of hiking opportunities. There’s Grand Teton National Park, Sawtooth Lake and, of course, Yellowstone.

This is another area that could be tricky though. Yellowstone National Park is a popular place for people to visit, so we’d likely need to book accommodation sooner rather than later. However, finding reasonably priced hotels or Airbnbs with flexible cancellation could make things a little harder – that’s something I need to do some research about.

Our Accommodation Plans

With the need to be flexible, we’re only going to be booking accommodation which is fully refundable. Hotels have been particularly flexible regarding reservations this year, with many suspending non-refundable rates for rates which can be cancelled without any penalty. Seeing as travel is unlikely to return to normal in 2021, I’m hopeful they’ll continue in this vein. Otherwise, we have plenty of hotel points we can use, with award bookings pretty much always being refundable.

The fly in the ointment is Airbnb. In the past we used to move every 5-7 days, but we’re now trying to move far less frequently. That means Airbnb can be a particularly good option as it means we’ll have a kitchen and more space, but their cancellation polices aren’t always as good.

Airbnb was fantastic for guests at the start of the pandemic as they let you cancel reservations – even non-refundable ones – with no penalty if they’d been booked before travel restrictions were put in place. With COVID being more of a known quantity since March, any reservations made since then have whatever cancellation policy was listed when making your reservation.

Some hosts are still having flexible cancellation policies, so that’s still an option. Something else we might do is book a hotel, but a couple of days before arrival take a look on Airbnb to see if there’s a better option there. Booking 24-48 hours before a stay greatly reduces the risk of us needing to cancel the Airbnb, while also having accommodation already lined up in the event there’s nothing we want to book in our price range on Airbnb.

Our Additional Travel Plans

Shae’s dad is getting remarried in May, so we’ll be traveling back for the wedding. From everything I’ve been reading, plane travel itself is actually very safe COVID-wise due to the HEPA filters and the way air is constantly replaced in the cabin. We’d therefore likely fly back rather than drive to and fro across the country yet again.

We’re also hoping to visit the UK in the spring, although we have no idea if that’s going to be a possibility. My dad will be turning 80, so we want to get back to be able to celebrate with him. It sounds like a COVID vaccine is due to start being distributed in the UK soon, with high-risk people presumably being at the top of the list after healthcare workers, so my parents’ age puts them in that category (sorry mum and dad!). Although they’re both in good health, I have no desire to put my parents at any kind of risk, so it would put my mind at ease if they had access to a vaccine by then.

Depending on how things get rolled out here in the US, it might even be possible for Shae and I to get vaccinated before a trip to the UK, although that could be wishful thinking given the timeframe and that there are people who need to get vaccinated more urgently than us.

That trip is therefore completely up in the air and would be something we’d have to plan last minute. We have plenty of airline miles, so even if last minute ticket prices were expensive, we’d hopefully be able to book award tickets without any issue.

Summary

So those are our plans. Unusually for us, we have nothing set in stone which feels weird and a little disconcerting.

With only a month until the New Year, all we know is that we’ll be driving out west with no particular destination in mind right now. Although that’s a strange feeling, it’ll hopefully lead to some serendipity along the way.