How to Road Trip Safely This Summer
Plus 4th of July wine recommendations
Hi everyone,
With the 4th of July weekend coming up and American travelers banned from the EU, this week’s newsletter was going to be about U.S. road trip tips. But...it’s hard to read the news and feel good about recommending any sort of travel right now. I know we’re all feeling really antsy (I had a ton of travel planned this year–I get it), but cases are rising in the U.S. and from afar it looks like people have given up caring. The same people who agreed with stay-at-home orders in March are now out socializing with friends, even though in many places (including Wisconsin, where my mother is very sick of me lecturing her) cases are higher than ever. I do not understand this logic. If you are one of these people, please email me with your thoughts because I am genuinely perplexed.
Be a Better Traveler
So, this would have been about all the fun things I love about road trips: diners! Roadside attractions! Gas station snacks! Quirky souvenirs! Sketchy hotels! But road trips should look a little different this year. If you do take a road trip, please keep these tips in mind:
Avoid hotels and consider camping or even sleeping in your car. Nathan and I slept in the back of an SUV for an entire two-week road trip a couple of years ago and it was so much fun. Pack sleeping bags and yoga mats, fold down the back seats and make a bed. We parked in national forests, truck stop parking lots, Target parking lots and once on the side of a quiet road.
Road trip with people you’ve already been living with, or who you’re absolutely sure are being smart and safe.
Get tested before you go. (And if you’re positive, obviously stay home, even if you feel fine).
Road trip within your state. This is a great time to see more of what makes your own state beautiful and unique! Especially if you live in an area with rising cases (see this map for breakdowns by county), don’t drive across the country and potentially infect somewhere else.
Stick to the great outdoors. Picnic rather than dine in restaurants, take a hike rather than check out a museum, etc. This is the summer of outdoor travel.
That said, think about and research your destination and avoid anywhere that will not have capacity to treat an influx of visitors. If the destination has limited access to healthcare or only one small clinic or relies on hospitals in other cities, avoid it. Big Bend National Park closed for a second time this week after a rush of tourism caused cases in the area to rise. While a wide open national park seems like a great place to social distance, many of these parks are surrounded by small towns that cannot handle lots of sick visitors. Until the park reopened, the area around Big Bend had zero cases. Don’t be the person who brings coronavirus to one of these towns.
Think outside national parks. The National Park Service includes national forests, national lakeshores, national seashores, national reserves, national monuments, national historic sites, and more, PLUS national parks. Rather than visiting a famous national park that’s likely to be crowded, visit an equally beautiful nearby national forest or lakeshore.
Wash or sanitize your hands and phone frequently, especially after stopping at gas stations.
Pack sandwiches and other road trip snacks, rather than stopping for food.
If you do stop in restaurants or for coffee, tip more than usual. People are literally putting their life on the line because they have to work, and restaurants and fast-food places are not known for great employee healthcare.
Wear a mask. Many, many studies show they work. Wear them even outdoors if you’re with other people. If everyone wore a mask all the time, I would feel sooo much better about traveling this summer or resuming normal life in general. Just look at Hong Kong!
Not coronavirus related, but my dad has a rule: don’t stop unless you can see it from the highway. This mainly applies to gas stations and food. I used to find it annoying, until I started driving and realized how frustrating it is to see a sign for a gas station, exit, then realize I have to drive another or mile or two to actually reach it.
Also not coronavirus related, but if you see someone being racist, step in. This article on the differences in road tripping for white and Black families is incredibly sad. Some of my best family memories involve summer road trips, and the fact that for many families they cause stress and fear rather than joy is heartbreaking.
On that note, it’s hard to feel all rah-rah-rah America’s so great this 4th of July. To be honest, I feel pretty ashamed to be American lately. One of the wealthiest countries in the world has proved incapable and unwilling to protect its citizens and hundreds of thousands of people will die because of it. People are struggling to feed their families, and are losing their jobs and with them their healthcare. Our president promotes racism, and police are attacking people protesting for basic human rights. Is this a place to be proud of? The only things over the last few months that have made me proud to be an American are watching Black Lives Matter protestors march for days on end and inspire similar protests around the world, watching people turn out to vote despite blatant voter suppression in Kentucky, and seeing people risk their jobs to oust racist and misogynistic higher ups in media and other industries. All of that makes me SO proud of the people in the country, but none of it should even have to happen. Which brings me to my next road trip tip:
Download some podcasts that will help facilitate conversations about some of these issues. These are a good place to start. I started listening to Still Processing a few weeks ago and have already learned so much.
Finally, consider staying home.
Be a Better Eater
Piatti is one of the cookbooks I’ve turned to over and over during lockdown. The prosciutto and pecorino panini on strawberry buttermilk biscuits would make a great Fourth of July snack. I’ll also be making the red, white, and blue icebox cake from Grandbaby Cakes.
See more of my favorite cookbooks and food memoirs here.
I had never heard of Akhuni until this fascinating thread. This is why I love food! There’s so much history involved in every ingredient and you can never know it all.
Have you tried luqaimat?
Wine of the Week
My wine picks for 4th of July celebrations include American wines from across the country and ONE French wine, because they did help us win the Revolution and it’s so good.
Links I Love
Students Create a Magazine to Salute Their Heroes: Chefs of Color: “It’s our job as Generation Z to speak up, because at the end of the day, the voices in the room aren’t always the voices of America as a whole.”
Heroes, Right? If you only read one thing in this newsletter, make it this.
Family buys all of a Chicago paletero’s ice pops on Father’s Day: The happiest story you’ll read all week.
The End of Tourism?: “It is hard to imagine a better illustration of tourism’s effects than our current holiday away from it.”
What Black America Means to Europe: “Europe has every bit as vile a history of racism as the Americas – indeed, the histories are entwined. The most pertinent difference between Europe and the US in this regard is simply that Europe practised its most egregious forms of anti-black racism – slavery, colonialism, segregation – outside its borders. America internalised those things.”
Ballpark Peanuts, a Classic Summer Pleasure, Have Been Benched: “Roasted in their shells and tossed into the stands with great ritual and panache, peanuts have been part of the national pastime for nearly 125 years. They have more cultural heft than hot dogs, and a more onerous coronavirus tale, too.”
Reclaiming Indian Food From the White Gaze: “At Manhattan’s Bombay Bread Bar, a white server felt compelled to explain kulcha to me; farther downtown at Janam Tea, my Pakistani friend and I received a lecture from a white woman who proudly told us how she was bringing Indian tea to the West, without any humility around claiming expertise of a culture that is not her own.”
There Should Be Farmland in NYC Parks, and It Should Belong to Young Residents of Color: “ In the bigger parks, they should start at turning over a quarter of an acre, at least. This is a way to put urban farmers in leadership positions, to show off people of color. We shouldn’t be dropping off food in communities of color. We should reinforce habits, healthwise, that improve people’s health for the long term.”
Why the Term BIPOC Is So Complicated, Explained by Linguists: “A debate is looming over the words we use when we talk about the people who are disproportionately the victims of police brutality. When do we use the phrase “people of color”; when do we say “BIPOC,” which stands for Black and Indigenous people of color; and when do we just say “Black”? “
Refusing to Wear a Mask Is Like Driving Drunk: “If we had been this passive in 1776, we would still be part of Britain. Yet even as we prepare to celebrate the Fourth of July, we don’t seem willing to assert independence from a virus that in four months has killed more Americans than the Korean, Vietnam, Gulf, Afghanistan and Iraq wars did over 70 years.”
Recommendations
Listen: to the Wind of Change podcast. If you like music or history or CIA intrigue you’ll love it. Amazing storytelling.
Do: Send me your questions about Italy travel! I’ll be going live with Rome-based Livia Hengel at 11 a.m. CST on Tuesday, July 7 to discuss what travel in Italy is like now, what we should be aware of when we can return, and how we can all be better travelers in Italy in general. Plus, her Rome food recommendations. Email or DM me your questions!
Watch: Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi.
Thanks for reading. Stay safe!
–Rebecca