The National Parks Provided Space And Adventure While Covid-19 Raged On And Cancelled Travel Plans Across The Globe

Before the pandemic started, I had only been to five national parks in the USA. In January and February, I expanded my national park checklist by fifteen additional parks. When talking to friends and family about this trip, and writing about it on my travel blog, I got mixed emotions from people. Traveling during Covid? Irresponsible. You were able to get out and get fresh air during lockdown? Awesome, good for you.

A Change In Travel Plans Due To COVID 19

While I had originally planned to leave the country in 2021, Covid was relentless and I knew that that was neither a considerate or healthy move. My partner and I put our heads together and wondered how we could get out and get some fresh land under our hiking boots while being as conscious of Covid as possible.

A Van Trip On The Horizon

We ultimately came up with a plan that kept in the USA and out of airplanes. We renovated my Ford Transit van on our small budget and hit the road for two months, taking a lot of pre-packed food with us and camping out on free Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land or backpacking into isolated camp spots at National Parks. (Learn how to find free camping/parking spots here!) We saw less people on our trip than we were normally having contact with in our everyday life. We felt safe and extremely privileged to be able to move around and find the freedom that we did during lockdown. 

What National Parks Were Like During The Pandemic

With the pandemic raging on, the national parks were a strange mix of people dashing out of their homes to find fresh air and finally put some space between themselves and their lockdown partner, and small ghosts of lines that were once long and full of tourists. Crowds flocked to the more popular parks like Arches National Park and Zion National Park. Other parks that are usually lower on people’s dream park check-list, like Capitol Reef National Park and Mesa Verde National Park, almost felt completely forgotten. 

We realized as we slowly ventured from one park to the next that we were rather enjoying the more “unpopular” parks. It was such an invigorating sensation to feel as though you had a whole national park to yourself.

Visiting Capitol Reef National Park

Capitol Reef National Park, a park that is teeming with history and dazzling rocks made of purple, yellow, and pale orange, was like a ghost city from an old western. As my partner and I zipped up our jackets to keep out the cold air and wrapped our hands just a little bit tighter around our warm teas, we were two of five people listening to an outdoor, in-depth talk from a ranger about the past lives of the park. When I looked around before attending this talk, I saw large rocks and thought their layers were “pretty cool.” Because we were such a small group attending, the talk became personal, intriguing, and an open Q & A session with someone who was able to provide solid answers to the questions that were racking our brains.

As we toured the park, I was able to look at my surroundings with more appreciation and the rocks seemed to be alive, begging us to imagine what their previous forms may have been like when the land that is now dry and sandy was underwater. The intimacy that the emptiness of the park provided with the ranger took me back to my young child’s brain and compelled me to feel like a grand explorer.

Tips for Capitol Reef National Park:

• Learn about the park before going through this series of videos
• Decide whether you plan to camp outside the park, at one of their campgrounds, or backpack in and set up camp
• Join a ranger-led talk to learn about the geologic processes that created the Waterpocket Fold before exploring
• Browse through some of their “Things To Do” like hiking, road tours, exploring the orchards, and rock climbing. We do not recommending riding horses, like the National Park Service does, for these reasons.

The Downsides Of Crowded National Parks 

On the other side of our experience was visiting national parks only to find that every other tourist had also decided to visit that day. Arches National Park, which had me drooling over the pictures of it’s epic arch structures over the years, became a place that left me a little nervous and distracted by the people instead of the landscape. Zion National Park felt the same.

Angels Landing In Zion National Park

Desperate to ditch the crowds and get a good vantage point of the park, my partner and I decided to take on the famous hike, Angel’s Landing. While hiking to the natural platform that is the starting point for the last and most steep part of the hike, we were able to socially distance ourselves and talk to folks who had done the climb before.

They told us that we were really lucky because usually the hike was packed to the point where it felt more like a Black Friday shopping spree and less like a special adventure. As we held on to the chains and hoisted ourselves up the side of an incredibly steep mountain, I put aside my fear of heights enough to appreciate the opportunity that we had unknowingly stepped into. When I needed a break, I could stop and rest. When I got scared, I could stop to catch my breath and get my bearings. Had it been a normal day at the park, I would have most likely been pushed and pressured to move along as quickly as possible.

The Lure And Glow Of The Dessert

Drinking in the quiet glow of an orange sunset over the desert; waking up early to see wild animals scurry through the vista; flipping eagerly flipping through my guide book while crafting the day’s adventure; these have been memories and feelings that I can return to when lockdown feels smothering. Knowing that those places are out there, and that I got to experience them in a way that I never had before, has brought me a sense of calm when the whole world seems to be uncertain.