Five weeks of fun: Solo female edition
April 3, 2022 8:19 PM Subscribe
I (mid-30s female) have five weeks (April 29-June 3) to myself for what will likely be the last time in a long while. Help me plan a budget adventure trip and/or cross-country road trip from SF to MA?
I’m heading east for grad school and have five weeks off before I have to be there. In an ideal world, I’d take an adventurous, budget-friendly international trip and then drive myself across the country in my Honda Fit. It is possible but not guaranteed that I’ll have company on one or both legs, so I’d like to plan to do it solo. I have camping/cooking gear and some people I can stay with across the country to keep costs down, even with gas prices what they are. As may be clear from the proximity of this time period, I’m pretty comfortable winging travel.
I would love to plan an international trip since I haven’t been out of the country in forever and likely won’t have time again for…who knows how long. I like to hike and climb and am comfortable meeting partners via Mt Project/bulletin boards so could conceivably do that for part of the trip. I can do the cross-country drive in as little as a week if necessary, so this could leave up to a month for play. I am most likely going to do a northern route across the US (have done a southern trip before and have people I can stay with in Wyoming, Minnesota, and Chicago).
Things I’ve considered:
- Hike the Annapurna circuit (this was when a friend was planning to join for sure; I’m not sure I want to do this solo during COVID, given the communal eating/sleeping situation)
- Chile/Patagonia (maybe too cold? I’m an equipped and relatively experienced snow person but not a solo-snow-in-unknown-territory person)
- Ecuador (have a climbing friend in Quito)
- British Columbia
- Mexico City
- Find a cheap international ticket and figure it out from there
- WWOOF somewhere with a lighter workload/decent mass transit (have done this before)
- Park myself in the Valley and meet people via the Camp 4 bulletin board (ditto)
- Take the whole 5 weeks to slowly drive across the country, stopping at national/state parks to do some backpacking etc (not super psyched on this as I’d likely have a fairly full car and don’t love the idea of leaving it random places full of stuff, though I'm planning to make window shades)
- LASH on the PCT or Appalachian trail
I would love any suggestions, thoughts, constructive criticisms, stories of similar trips, etc. Thanks for reading!
I’m heading east for grad school and have five weeks off before I have to be there. In an ideal world, I’d take an adventurous, budget-friendly international trip and then drive myself across the country in my Honda Fit. It is possible but not guaranteed that I’ll have company on one or both legs, so I’d like to plan to do it solo. I have camping/cooking gear and some people I can stay with across the country to keep costs down, even with gas prices what they are. As may be clear from the proximity of this time period, I’m pretty comfortable winging travel.
I would love to plan an international trip since I haven’t been out of the country in forever and likely won’t have time again for…who knows how long. I like to hike and climb and am comfortable meeting partners via Mt Project/bulletin boards so could conceivably do that for part of the trip. I can do the cross-country drive in as little as a week if necessary, so this could leave up to a month for play. I am most likely going to do a northern route across the US (have done a southern trip before and have people I can stay with in Wyoming, Minnesota, and Chicago).
Things I’ve considered:
- Hike the Annapurna circuit (this was when a friend was planning to join for sure; I’m not sure I want to do this solo during COVID, given the communal eating/sleeping situation)
- Chile/Patagonia (maybe too cold? I’m an equipped and relatively experienced snow person but not a solo-snow-in-unknown-territory person)
- Ecuador (have a climbing friend in Quito)
- British Columbia
- Mexico City
- Find a cheap international ticket and figure it out from there
- WWOOF somewhere with a lighter workload/decent mass transit (have done this before)
- Park myself in the Valley and meet people via the Camp 4 bulletin board (ditto)
- Take the whole 5 weeks to slowly drive across the country, stopping at national/state parks to do some backpacking etc (not super psyched on this as I’d likely have a fairly full car and don’t love the idea of leaving it random places full of stuff, though I'm planning to make window shades)
- LASH on the PCT or Appalachian trail
I would love any suggestions, thoughts, constructive criticisms, stories of similar trips, etc. Thanks for reading!
I'd do a Road Trip, possibly across Canada. The US and Canada have amazing National Parks. Big parts of Canada are pretty isolated and likely to have tons of hiking and cheap/ free camping. Bonus: though nights will get a lot shorter, Northern Lights are likely to be visible. I'd probably arrange to have enough stuff shipped to be able to travel in comfort, or get a roof bag or hitchrack. A Fit should be able to accommodate 500 lbs or so, but check the manual.
Get window screens; they'll help obscure contents of the car, and also, skeeters. I have car-camped in my Prius and it's been great. My biggest concern is catalytic converter theft, planning to get a shield.
posted by theora55 at 8:48 AM on April 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
Get window screens; they'll help obscure contents of the car, and also, skeeters. I have car-camped in my Prius and it's been great. My biggest concern is catalytic converter theft, planning to get a shield.
posted by theora55 at 8:48 AM on April 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
Hello, climber. I agree strongly with raccoon above -- take this opportunity to get to the harder-to-access places that will be put at a disadvantage by air travel. For instance, Vegas as a trip from MA is easy. The Valley (May/June is perfect season for it!) is less so, as is BC, or City of Rocks.
There's a Women Climbers facbook group, btw.
posted by Dashy at 8:57 AM on April 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
There's a Women Climbers facbook group, btw.
posted by Dashy at 8:57 AM on April 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
A (vaxxed & boosted) friend of mine went to Costa Rica for two weeks and got Covid and was delayed coming back by a week. It wasn't a disaster for him (his symptoms were mild and he was able to hang out on the beach his travel mates who also got Covid), but if your timing is tight with school, it might be stressful if your return home gets delayed and then you have to drive across the country. I'm not a super cautious person and love the idea of winging this, but if you're going to travel out of the country during this pandemic, I think it makes sense to plan a bit more. I'd say to go for a few weeks, and maybe sooner rather than later and schedule in plenty of cushion for your trip and the drive.
As an alternative to doing a lot of adventuring with a fully-packed car: could you do a few weeks of travel in the west and then go back to SF and pack up? That adds more driving, which might be tiring, but also gives you some more flexibility in terms of routes and less stress about all your stuff.
posted by bluedaisy at 11:05 AM on April 4, 2022
As an alternative to doing a lot of adventuring with a fully-packed car: could you do a few weeks of travel in the west and then go back to SF and pack up? That adds more driving, which might be tiring, but also gives you some more flexibility in terms of routes and less stress about all your stuff.
posted by bluedaisy at 11:05 AM on April 4, 2022
No suggestions on activities (not a climber, or much of hiker) but does your budget allow for packing your stuff in a "Pod" or many boxes and shipping it ahead to where you are going to end up?
posted by TimHare at 11:39 AM on April 4, 2022
posted by TimHare at 11:39 AM on April 4, 2022
If you do trip cross country maybe add-on art museums an great libraries in any city you pass through, or even come near. Art museums are my churches, great libraries are, well, great.
posted by dancestoblue at 4:38 PM on April 4, 2022
posted by dancestoblue at 4:38 PM on April 4, 2022
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Personally I find international travel right now (as someone who has traveled and lived all over the world) to be too stressful. Unknowns around COVID quarantines, changing or local rules about vaccinations and boosters, etc.
I would take two weeks to travel/camp/hike all over the west coast and explore everything you’ve been “meaning to” visit but never got around to. Moving to the east coast means all of those activities will be a lot harder (or more expensive) to do.
That being said, if you really want to do international, a friend is in Equador right now and absolutely loving it. High speed internet for work, surging and swimming each day in a beautiful climate with delicious food. If you could swing the Galapagos, I’d do that.
And a PS just in case- my grad school, a few weeks before starting all of sudden sent out all of these online modules and orientations for us to complete before arriving to campus. I was glad to be home and not worry about completing those while one the road.
posted by raccoon409 at 6:16 AM on April 4, 2022 [1 favorite]