Freshly laid off from work, looking to possibly start doing an east starting in NYC to west route. First time doing something like this, aside from using warm showers, any route recommendations and has anyone had any issues with COVID aside from some stuff being closed?
I have no experience with touring in these Covid times so my comments aren't going to provide much specific to that, at least nothing based on actual experience with the current situation.
I will say that for me warmshowers stops proved to be of limited use in non Covid times and I'd imagine it would be worse now. I found that warmshowers hosts were not as conveniently located as I'd have liked and often had expectations that didn't work for me. Many (most?) wanted some notice and for me that didn't really work well. That was the biggest issue. I find that I really don't want to plan stops ahead of time I don't usually know where I will want to stop for the day until I am there. I fully understand folks wanting some notice that someone is coming, but I not only don't know when I will be getting to a given town, but typically don't know if I will want to stop there for the night. I didn't find it fair to contact folks about possibly coming, not committing to a firm date, and maybe never showing when I decided not to stop in their town. Better to just not use them at all.
I do find them useful at times when I know exactly when and what I need. For example at the start of a tour if I need some kind of logistical support like an address to have a box to shipped to or be held at or maybe a place to stay after flying in late enough not to start a ride that day.
In these Covid times with social distancing I'd imagine that fewer doors would be open to you. So I'd really recommend not relying too heavily on warmshowers hosts, at least not as a primary strategy.
I found that once away from either coast, camping was easy enough to manage, usually for free and with no need for stealth. Not sure if the current social/political climate in the country has impacted that much or not. On my first tour (using the ACA Trans America maps) we relied pretty heavily on the stops listed on the ACA maps. I thought that was because the trail had been well blazed, but subsequently found that I found that especially in the middle of the country I could use what I learned from that to find places to stay in most small rural towns anywhere that I went.
Keep us posted on how things go since we are all wondering how the new normal will be for touring.
