From PA to AK: The Ups and Downs of a Solo 6,000 Mile Road Trip

As soon as the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020, all efforts of any kind of planning for the future were thrown out the window. My original plan was to spend early 2020 taking impromptu trips around the world while looking for a career job and temporarily working as a server. Fast forward to early 2021 and the travel and tourism industry still had a long road to recovery. Without the hope of imminent work in my professional field of travel and tourism, I was at a crossroad: I could either stay in Pennsylvania for another summer working as a server or live and work somewhere new and have an adventure. Can you guess which I chose?

After a little research, I secured a job working as a server in the small town of Talkeetna, Alaska for the summer. For reference, Talkeetna is located outside of Denali National Park, has fewer than 1,000 year round residents, up until a few years ago their mayor was a cat named Stubbs, and the closest Walmart or affordable grocery store is an hour and a half drive away. So it sounded like the perfect place for a summer adventure and to basically live in a Hallmark movie.

Street sign in Talkeetna

I decided that because I was moving to such a remote area it would be beneficial to have a car to be able to buy essentials and fully explore the area for hiking and camping. So I bought my Adventure Bae (aka my new-to-me Subaru Forester) and packed up a lot of my life in my 70 cubic feet of cargo space, strapped a gas can to my roof, and was off on my 6,000+ mile journey.

My entire road trip was just over 3 weeks from April 17th until I arrived in Talkeetna on May 9th, leaving plenty of time to mosey around the country, even taking a southern route to get to Alaska! I planned out my daily drive before I left including where I’d be sleeping and potential activities to do along the way (I love a good google spreadsheet), while leaving plenty of time to follow roadside signs boasting attractions that can’t be missed. As a natural planner, I got so much joy before I even left on my trip by being able to pre-explore places and let the trip anticipation grow.

There’s so much that I could touch upon about this road trip (if you got me talking about travel in general I could ramble on to you for hours) but I’ll try my best to not make this one post into a full novel.

Unique Experiences

There were so many unique experiences I got to have from taking a solo cross country road trip. The U.S. is filled with incredible sights from the expansive cave systems of Mammoth Cave and the hand painted murals in Great Falls, to the badlands in Scottsbluff and Theodore Roosevelt National Park and classic road trip oddities like the world’s largest ball of twine.

The World’s Largest Ball of Twine in Kansas

An alley filled with murals in Great Falls, Montana

While I was hiking part of the Oregon Trail in Scottsbluff, I took a break on a bench to soak in the views as I read my book when all of a sudden I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye. It turned out to be a skunk just wandering around on the path! I quickly gathered my stuff and slowly tried to corral the skunk out of the path so we could both keep doing our thing without anyone getting hurt, or sprayed. Thankfully the skunk eventually went on its merry way back into the prairie and when I recounted my experience to a park ranger back at the ranger station he commented that he “didn’t think that skunks are a common animal in the park”. You never know what you might find out in the wild!

A skunk at Scottsbluff along the Oregon Trail

I also went beyond just the more typically visited national parks and explored state and local parks. One that really stuck out to me was Toadstool Geologic Park in western Nebraska that boasted large rock formations in a badlands fashion. In that area, there aren’t many animals that cause imminent danger to humans (beyond the occasional rattlesnake) so I was able to hike the trails without worrying about the animals that might be there. Around every bend of the trail, new rock formations would present themselves, offering another unique impression of Nebraska beyond what I had assumed was a completely flat state.

Hiking in Toadstool Geologic Park in Nebraska

I slept in my car for a few days during my journey. Despite my Instagram discovery feed being filled with van conversions, my car camping experience was a little more… rustic. I basically threw all my stuff to one side of my car, put up my makeshift curtains made from bed sheets and velcro, and slept in my sleeping bag laying in the space of one seat, and it did the trick! The first night I was sleeping in my car, it was raining and I woke up at 2am and convinced myself that there was a raccoon on my roof (which in hindsight there definitely wasn’t). This led to a range of events, from closing my windows to make the window gap smaller so a raccoon couldn’t possibly enter my car, to holding my camping knife, usually used to make kindling, against my chest in case the fictitious raccoon decided to join me in my car.

My car camping setup

When Things Don’t Go According to Plan

As expected with anything in life, things don’t always go as planned. One example of this along my trip was when I planned to camp in my car one night at a campsite in Montana. I showed up, set up my car, and ate dinner, only to find out the campsite was closed for anyone except those in self contained RVs (which my Subaru Forester is definitely not) when I found a sign on the locked bathroom door. That meant I had to go and find an impromptu hotel room with no other campsite options nearby. It ended up working out and the room was pretty nice and the staff friendly, but it was an additional expense I wasn’t planning for!

Another thing I didn’t plan for was hotel safety. Some hotels and motels I stayed in had pretty good reviews online but when I arrived they were kind of sketchy. Some of these also didn’t have additional lock features inside the room beyond needing a key to get in. As a solo female traveler I wanted some extra lock protection (someone could easily have a replicated key) so I often took a chair and put it underneath the doorknob. In one room, the chair wasn’t tall enough to reach the door so I placed the chair against the door and put all of my belongings I had in the room on the chair to weigh it down. I woke up a couple of times that night thinking about what I would do if there was a break in, but thankfully there were no issues!

One hotel room where I placed a chair under the doorknob for an added layer of protection

Before I took the Alcan Highway in Canada, I filled up a gas can to strap to my car roof in case there were long stretches without gas stations (the government of Canada actually advised this!). When I was still in Pennsylvania, I went over strapping the gas can to my roof with my dad to prepare me but when it came time to actually strap the can, I was hard core struggling. I was trying different ways to sling straps and try and secure them without much success. Thankfully at the gas station there was a kind stranger who offered to help me and he had the gas can secured in a matter of a couple of minutes.

Driving the Alcan

The only way to get into Alaska from the lower 48 is by transiting through Canada, most commonly via the Alcan Highway (aptly named because it goes from Alaska to Canada). There were more hoops to jump through this year because the Canada border was closed to travelers because of the Covid-19 pandemic. To be allowed through the country, I needed proof that I was living and working in Alaska for the summer (along with a laundry list of details about the job), a negative Covid test from the past 72 hours, enough food and water for the entire drive in the country, and I had to agree to the conditions of transiting which basically meant that I could only be inside my car or my hotel and not visit any tourist spots (or risk fines up to $750,000).

The road itself is also known to cause issues for people such as blown out tires from the bumpy roads, running out of gas because gas stations can be hundreds of miles apart in more remote areas, or getting cracked windshields from the loose rocks along the road. Thankfully I didn’t run into any of these issues personally, but I also kept my distance from other cars and didn’t let my gas tank get below a half gallon.

Some gas pumps along the Alcan Highway

While the road may not have had the best conditions, it did have some of the best views. The Alcan is in remote Canada and went through different landscapes that made me drop my jaw after every turn. From vast forests to frozen lakes and snow capped mountains, there was plenty of incredible scenery to keep me entertained and excited for my upcoming summer!

Just one blip along the Alcan Highway

The Benefits of Solo Traveling

Traveling solo can be a daunting thought for a lot of people. When I told people I was taking this road trip alone, a lot of people reacted with “you’re going ALONE?”, oftentimes being impressed and a little concerned. But there are so many upsides as a solo traveler!

The independence and freedom of solo travel is unparalleled. Knowing that you need to rely on yourself to get through different situations and keep yourself on track is empowering. I took a hike at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota where I went through 3 different ecosystems (badlands, prairies, forests) and it was absolutely gorgeous. When I got back to my car after hiking 6 miles alone, including a river crossing, I felt on top of the world (I also checked with the rangers before I went to find solo-hike friendly options to find a safe trail). I got to experience immense vastness on the prairie and as far as the eye could see. I was alone, but I certainly wasn’t lonely.

A solo hike in Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Another benefit of solo travel was that I could be on my own schedule. I could start my day whenever I wanted, which was most often earlier than I planned because my body kept waking me up at 6am, and I didn’t have to wait for other people to get ready or feel rushed to go somewhere. I also had freedom to choose what I wanted to do with my day. There were some days that were jammed packed with stops and adventures. Other days were like one I spent preparing for the Alcan drive that included a stop at Walmart and the grocery store, but mostly watching movies and decompressing from long days of driving. I could really decide what I needed each day without having to consider what other people might be interested in doing.

Solo travel also encourages socialization with new people. When I travel with a group, I tend to stay with my group more during activities and at night, and don’t branch out as much. After all, there’s a reason I’m traveling with those people! But traveling solo brings an openness to spending time with new people. I spent half an hour chatting with another solo traveler I met at Mt. Rushmore and we traded some of our favorite road trip spots. When I was in Anchorage, I stayed at an Airbnb where I spent hours talking around a fire with my hosts and their 2 friends from everything from travel to local traditions in Anchorage. If I was traveling with other people I would’ve been more inclined to get more private accommodations and completely missed out on the night filled with laughter and new friends.

The fireplace I spent hours around in Anchorage. Photo taken around 11:30pm

The Limitations of Solo Traveling

As much as I enjoy solo travel, there were some moments that I wished I had someone else on the journey with me. First of all, the landscapes I was seeing and the adventures I was having were amazing but there is no one that I can look back on the trip with. No “remember when…” moments with another person because I was alone. I was also wishing that some of my loved ones could experience what I was experiencing too because I know they’d enjoy it.

Some Alaskan mountains

More logistically, it would’ve been nice to have someone else on the trip to help break up the driving so I could’ve had time to just look at the window. If I was traveling with someone else, I could’ve covered more ground by driving more hours in a day. I imagine I would’ve also felt safer in some of the more sketchy hotels if I were with someone else.

Then there were some activities that I wanted to do in some places that I wasn’t able to do alone. For example, in Montana I wanted to go hiking but with grizzly bears around, it isn’t very safe to hike solo. I also don’t like to go out and drink alone so I missed out on exploring some (limited) nightlife or even doing things like bourbon distillery tours in Kentucky because I wasn’t comfortable doing that alone.

Overall, I’m really thankful that I was able to take this cross country road trip where I got to see incredible landscapes and found unique experiences. After more than a year in Pennsylvania, I was ready for a change and those 6,000+ miles on the road was an empowering adventure that I’ll remember for a lifetime.

I made it to Alaska!

How a Solo Road Trip During a Pandemic Made Me a More Lovable Traveler:

1. Understanding and respecting different people’s comfort levels. Because I was traveling during a pandemic, I made sure to respect the highest level of protection presented. In Canada, masks were mandated outside of my car and room and I wasn’t allowed in shops or public spaces, so I followed those restrictions. In the middle of America, masks weren’t worn but because they were small towns (I might almost go as far to say large pods), I didn’t want to bring in germs from other places and I wore my mask. But I loved how it wasn’t a political issue there. They respected my decision to wear a mask and I understood that I was in their space and masks weren’t brought up in conversation one time. Rather, they talked to me as a traveler, joked around, and encouraged me on my trip, which was refreshing from some strong pro or anti-mask sentiments displayed where I came from.

2. Learning more about vast natural spaces in the U.S. made me even more adamant about wanting to protect these spaces so that future generations can experience visits to the same places I was fortunate enough to go to.

3. Recognizing that there are ups and downs of all kinds of travel and that no one way to travel (ex. Solo or in a group, new destinations through a road trip or spending a month in one destination) is inherently better than the other, granted sustainable practices are exhibited through that travel.