A new normal in the coming social distancing hangover

Living in the new normal will not be easy. It means balancing your post COVID-19 personal responsibilities with recreation. To be more precise; travel. Never has the time been better than now, and in the immediate future, to journey to the types of places celebrated on Outerrealmz.com. Going off the beaten path and/or the lesser known has never been so appetizing. Road trip social distancing makes total sense.

As a result, this summer will bring the American road trip into more demand than ever. But instead of motoring off to Disneyland, New York City or a packed National Park, there may be an urge for a little more isolation. Call it a social distancing hangover if you will, except it will feel good. This means finding places where tourists are few and phone reception sporadic, at best.

So where do you go?

More like where not to go. For every tourist attraction, there are countless destinations that are under the radar. Although these places may be somewhat hidden, the ways and means to find them are not. It requires only a scant amount of homework in the method of your choosing. Let us count the ways.

If you are interested in a particular field, say ghost towns or hot springs, Google can turn up websites and forums that will help with what the site has to offer, with directions and road conditions. The same goes for remote campgrounds, hiking trails, historical battlegrounds and other isolated points of interest. If you are targeting a certain geographical location; historical centers, museums and the Chamber of Commerce in the nearest town may come up with some surprising results.

Atlas Obscura  (https://www.atlasobscura.com/) is a great source for more general “off the beaten path” objectives. Then there are travel blogs, I mean the kind of travel blogs that focus on forgotten and seldom heard of places, like yours truly! However, if you are leery of leaving paved roads and you want to maintain contact with civilization, there are overlooked State Parks out there that have extraordinarily little traffic. I have been to some of these in Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, where I was the only soul around. Some of these parks are often deserted, sadly enough, due to lack of interest.

But if you want to find that hidden gem which has not been recorded on a website, in a history book, or passed down from your great uncle Elmer, you need to go to the locals. I have learned more valuable secrets from parlors of information (saloons) in tiny towns in distant deserts and mountains, than from anywhere else. Gas stations, general stores and old men on tractors are also good.

No masks required

When the road beckons this summer, and it will, remember you do not have to compete for space. There is plenty of it all over. While the traffic is backed up at Yellowstone, enjoy the bison in a remote valley 40 miles away. While hundreds of tourists cram and stretch to view a silly gun fight in Tombstone or Virginia City, instead walk the forgotten main street of an overlooked relic that gets three visitors a week. It is not hard to do.

And if you’re into things like archeology and petroglyphs, you may find artifacts that are rarely seen, or have not been found for generations. Myth chasers, paranormal investigators and treasure hunters are often a lonely bunch, and happy for it. I know people who have been searching for a lost ship in the Mohave Desert of California (Yes, the desert!) for decades. They may not find it, but neither are they finding crowds of people. These folks have naturally built-in road trip social distancing.

Want more ideas? Scan through the almost two years of Outerrealmz.com blog posts, which range from redheaded giants in Nevada caves to renting a car in Scotland. Or lookup information by some of the other means I listed above. Why find yourself helplessly squished and suffocating on a cramped bridge at Niagara Falls, when you can play beneath a waterfall of your very own in a secluded canyon that few people know of?

The Covid-19 aftermath does not have to be painful. In fact, a lot of fun and exploration await on the backroads and far flung corners of our American continent.