Posted on 06/05/2020 5:08:37 AM PDT by Freedom_Is_Not_Free
I need help from the Freeper family for cross country travel advice during the Covid re-opening, to drive from California to the southeast and scout out locations for a new place to live.
I am asking Freepers for information regarding travel restrictions and accomodations in various states, at and to my destinations.
-
Questions
1. Are hotels open for business in Alabama, Florida, South Carolina and Tennesee?
2. Are masks and face coverings mandatory in Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, and Tennessee?
3. Are apartment managers allowing visitors to physically see units in their apartment complexes, or is everything still being done remotely in Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, and Tennessee?
4. Can I drive through Arizona, Utah, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana on my way to and from those 4 states or do I have to 14-day quarantine every time I drive into a new state?
5. Are rest stops opened in the above states of Arizona to Arkansas, or do I have to bring a jar to pee in on the way? Are Truck Stops opened?
Here are all the places I would like to visit. I would be leaving July 1, 2020 at the latest and will probably take 6-8 weeks to see all these locations.
-
Destinations
Alabama -- Orange Beach, Madison (Huntsville suburb), Fairhope
Florida -- Jacksonville Beach, St. Augustine, Pensacola
South Carolina -- Mount Pleasant (Charleston suburb), Hilton Head, North Myrtle Beach, Murrells Inlet, Socastee
Tennessee -- Farragut, Powell, Maryville (Knoxville suburbs), Signal Mountain, Lookout Mountain (Chattanooga suburbs), Brentwood, Franklin (suburbs of Nashville)
I apologize for the Vanity, but I am kind of at my wits end seeking accurate and timely informaion about travel restrictions to and through the various states and hoping Freepers can help me out. Most state web sites are out of date. Leave California or Bust.
I am glad the Florida check points are over. I don’t want to deal with that. Thank you.
Good advice. Thank you.
I have been dying to get out of California for around 12 years. Well, much longer than that but about 12 years ago I really just wanted out. That would be what, 2008. Right about when Obama was elected. California has just gone over a cliff. Rat supermajorities and no statewide Republicans at all. Zero.
It has been a long wait but now I have light at the end of the tunnel. I can’t wait to escape from behind the Pink Curtain and return to America. Time to plan my escape.
So if I take I-10, no drama. It sounds like it is not a deciding factor on which route to take, but I am leaning on going out I-10. Glad to know Arizona has no appreciable issues. That’s good.
Odds are very good I will be flying through Louisiana without stopping. Not even for gas. But we’ll see. Thanks for the good advice. If I head up to Tennessee first, I will never be in Louisiana.
Fairhope is on my list. I want to see it. Orange Beach sounds expensive. I am not ruling out either but Fairhope is definitely on my list of cities to check out on my relocation scouting trip.
Sounds wonderful. I will be checking out the area for certain.
Thanks for letting me know you are in Phase 2 opening. That is good. I don’t need to shop or do advanced things. All I need are hotels and grocery stores, and that is enough to support my drives and walks and apartment searches in the areas I am considering.
So thanks.
Good to hear I will have no issues visiting Florida for my relocation scouting.
I’m not liberal. I am sure you can use all the conservative voters you can get to keep Florida from going more purple. It is hard to say how conservative I am. I have read on FreeRepublic and in other places how Californians think they are conservative and then they move to places where they don’t seem that conservative much at all in their new city/state.
I can only hope I pass the conservative test. Jesus is my savior. I have several guns and cases of ammo I hope don’t get lost in a boating accident along the way. I vote a straight Republican ticket. Voted for Trump the 1st time. But who knows? A lot of us California conservatives are not as conservative as we think we are. But I’m no liberal. No sir.
Very good advice. I don’t plan to spend much time in big cities, if any. None of the places I am looking to move to is a big city. Most are suburbs or small cities an hour or more from a big city. I want that access, but I don’t want to live in that kind of mess. The recent riots only underscore that conviction.
Thanks for the news as you know it. As valuable as any.
Thanks for clarifying but I plan to circumnavigate them anyway. I don’t want to deal with cities right now. I just want to leap to the places I’m scouting and leap back. The sooner I fall in love with the place, the sooner I can LEAVE California.
That’s when the fun begins. After leaving California. I am treating this like a work trip, not a vacation. This is serious business for me — picking a new home. The fun will start after I move in.
Mr. RightField and I are leaving in a few weeks for a month long trip (in our motorhome) from our home in Florida to South Carolina, over to Mississippi, down to New Orleans, then back home. Not sightseeing, just visiting relatives and checking up on property we own. We refuse to live in fear. All the places we’ll be staying are open and run by conservatives, lol, so I think we’ll be fine.
Btw, we moved to Florida from California 15 years ago ... love it here and wish we had made the move decades before, when our kids were young. Thankfully, they are out of CA now, too.
Maybe we will pass eachother on the road.
I won’t live in fear either, but I hate to drive 2,400 miles straight through when all the bathrooms are closed. LOL.
Also, the last few times I had to sleep in my car were just miserable. My current car is more comfy, but it is still not the same as having a hotel bed to sleep in.
I am not the RV type. Just never liked carrying my home with me. It is very convenient if you like that kind of thing. You can pull over almost anywhere and have a place to sleep.
We are escapees from Northern CA and settled into update SC-close to the NC border. We love the area as it backs up to the Blue Ridge Mts, with so many great parks, lakes etc.
There has been an influx of NY and NJ people moving here. The bigger towns are really turning purple. Some of them will call into local talk radio, complaining about Southern culture, too much fried food, too many churches, confederate flags etc. Last Christmas, one of our “new” neighbors complained about a home that had a nativity scene in the front year. Needless to say, the new people decided to move to another state as they hated being here.
We miss our old friends and our CA property, but it was the best decision we ever made to get out ofd there.
Good luck with your travels. You will find your special place. Southern hospitality is legendary.
I wanted to leave California in 2002, but necessary commitments held me here until retirement this year.
I have never cried over spilled milk. The future is bright for me. I am SO grateful I have the money and freedom to leave California behind. I can’t say for sure, but there is a good chance I will never set foot in Calfornia again the rest of my life.
The only thing I am going to miss about California is Yosemite National Park. Well, maybe Lake Tahoe. a little bit. Yosemity, for sure.
In all honesty, I love the Confederate flag. It is not a symbol of racism. It is a symbol of heritage. I am furious that the left has turned the Confederate flag into the physical equivalent of the “N-word”. The very display is not allowed in most states and spreading rapidly to the South. It is horrendous.
It sounds like South Carolina can use my vote. Lets hope the liberal transplants keep moving back. If I move their, I will buy a big old nativity scene for the lawn just to piss them off.
While not in Alabama, another place I would suggest for your search is Port St. Joe, Florida. Not far from Panama City, so shopping etc. is within reach, but a very nice safe slow-moving Gulf Coast town.
Our son lives between Spartanburg and Greenville. Sounds close to you? We like it there. We ended up in Florida because we cared for my mom in her last years, then I inherited her house and had already settled in by that time.
Call a few of the motels to find out their status but I haven’t noticed too much being closed here from the beginning. Stay away from Memphis after dark. Memphis is dangerous and not only because of covid. The ferals come out after dark. It’s a Dem stronghold and also had a lot of covid.
Florida’s nice...
Our governor was messing with people coming from New York at the height of the pandemic but I think that’s over. Never heard any complaints about people from California.
There’s a ‘culture’ of wearing masks in grocery stores to protect store employees who are exposed to hundreds of people every day - sometimes thousands. But it’s not mandatory. Of course individual store owners can make the call about requiring masks in their own businesses. That’s as it should be...
Florida’s a ‘live and let live state’... with a fair number of strange people. For years, when people wanted to start their lives over - they came here. So we’ve got ‘the interesting, the strange, and the ‘florida man’ types. Jack Kerouac and Ernest Hemingway lived here...
and they ‘fit in’... a restaurant here is named after a beach bum... and we have people who have real jobs hunting for pirate treasure.
We lived in the Sierras, an hour from Lake Tahoe. We loved going there for hiking weekends as well as visiting Yosemite. Carmel was also a place we loved to visit.
One of the first thing people asked us when we moved to SC was “what is wrong with the people and the govt in California?”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.