San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Finding spot for summer vacation not easy quest
The combination of closed vacation destinations in Hawaii, Europe and elsewhere, and 100%booked cabins and campgrounds across California, is forcing many with vacation time to scramble wildly for answers to the question of where they can go this summer.
“We have every one of our cabins booked into midAugust, and that’s never happened before,” said Harold Jones at Sugarloaf Resort at
Shasta Lake. “It’s like this everywhere. There’s urgency out there. People feel they are running out of places to turn to.”
That has led to a new state of affairs for traveling this summer, which includes moonshot prices for some vacation rentals at Lake Tahoe and houseboats at Shasta Lake.
As the peak vacation season arrives in the “Summer of COVID,” as some call it, I have adopted eight rules to avoid grief and find opportunities. They range from what I call “The Egegik Behavior Testament” to adventures in Northern California wilderness areas. If you follow them, your trip planning this season will go much smoother.
Enforce maskwearing: Egegik, population 109, is located southwest of King Salmon in remote Alaska, roughly on the eastern shore of Bristol Bay. When the salmon show up in summer, the population of Egegik rockets to a few thousand, a mix of fishermen, cannery workers and support staff.
My son Jeremy is working the summer there, running a salmon boat. “When you show up, everybody is quarantined for two weeks,” he said.
The town, which is isolated with no roads in, has hired three fulltime enforcement officers — “Mask Police,” Jeremy said — to make sure nobody exposes COVID19 to the community and screws up the threemonth economy. It’s working. The town has zero cases. Call it the Egegik Behavior Testament.
There’s a lesson here: Protect the people and the outdoor experience through enforcement — starting with maskwearing — and in the process, you protect the economy.
Go farther: Thousands of trips to Hawaii, Europe and across the country have been canceled, and all those people with canceled trips have newfound vacation time.
I believe that 95% of travelers tend to visit 5% of the available destinations. That is being magnified this summer. To have much of a chance for a spot to call your own, you have to venture far off the radar, either remote national forest, fourwheel drive and/or a hike, and better yet, do it on Mondays, Tuesday or Wednesdays.
Look for cheap lodging: As a result of canceled trips and compression, prices for topshelf vacation rentals are out of whack — both in ways that benefit travelers and ways that don’t.
At Lake Tahoe, for instance, Aframes that sleep four to six can be snagged for about $225 to $300 per night. A bungalow in Tahoma with five bedrooms and a deck with a view of the lake, for instance, was listed this past week for $457 per night, roughly $3,000 for a single week.
Those are steals compared with normal summertime prices. But beware: Other popular spots have seen major inflation on lodging costs.
If you’re looking for a hotel, make sure to ask about new discounts and group rates.
Go early for walkin campsites: At parks and major Forest Service campgrounds, about 90% of campsites are available by reservation, and most are booked on weekends. The remaining 10% are first come, first served.
It’s best to go Mondays through Wednesdays to snag a site. Another option is heading to the most remote sections of Northern California to a national forest, where about 200 firstcome, firstserved campgrounds are available. Over the Fourth of July weekend, even these filled. For all of them, see my book “Moon California Camping,” or check with the Forest Service. Information: U.S. Forest
Service, Region 5, www.fs. usda.gov/r5
Consider a houseboat: A houseboat solves the problem of finding a lakeside campsite, because you literally create one every night.
The No. 1 destination for houseboat trips in Shasta Lake, with its size, private coves and warm, clean water. Other destinations include the SacramentoSan Joaquin River Delta, Trinity Lake, Lake Berryessa and Oroville, and Don Pedro, Bullards Bar and New Melones reservoirs.
The catch? The price. At Jones Valley at Shasta Lake, for instance, one of the most popular houseboat models, the Escapade, with an upstairs barbecue and hot tub, costs $4,790 for a threenight weekend through midAugust, $6,000 for a week, plus gas. Information: Houseboats. com
Look locally: The Chronicle’s online Outdoor Guide, which we call the Tracker, features an interactive map that details more than 350 recreation destinations in the region. New openers this past week included boat rentals at Lake Chabot and Los Vaqueros marinas, the handlaunch kayak site for Drakes Estero at Point Reyes; plus the salmon fishing has been red hot off Pedro Point near southern Pacifica. The rule here: Risk the unknown. Many return to familiar sites, over and over.
Consider an RV: Yes, RV rentals are surging this summer as travelers look for ways to social distance while on vacation. For about the same price as rural lodging, $100 to $175 per night, you can rent an RV.
The question is, “Where do you end up for the night?” The answer is that many RV parks across Northern California have sites available Sunday nights through Wednesday nights, and after that, you better have a reservation booked well in advance. That’s the lesson. On weekends, they fill up, and many new to RV life can be left praying they can find a flat spot in a national forest. Information: Cruise America, www.cruiseamerica.com; RV Share, www.rvshare.com; Outdoorsy, www.outdoorsy. com
Wilderness favors the bold: Those willing to drive deep into national forests to wilderness trailheads, then strap on a backpack and walk for eight hours a day, up ridges, over passes and into basins can create treks where you end each day at a gorgeous lakeside campsite. It can be a vacation in paradise, but the lesson is clear: You must earn it. A wilderness trek requires time, fitness, the right equipment, camp skills and often a vehicle that can handle rough roads to trailheads. For many, these requirements present a collective stopper.
Information: U.S. Forest Service, Region 5, www.fs. usda.gov/r5
Tom Stienstra is The San Francisco Chronicle’s outdoor writer. Email: tstienstra@sfchronicle. com Twitter: @StienstraTom