Story By: Britney Nguyen
Graphics By: Valentina Arismendi
Broadcast By: Chip Sweeney
In the three-and-a-half weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Victoria McAlister, Michelle Li, Cameron Beals and Emily Williams traveled the country, sleeping in a campervan on the sides of roads, in national park campgrounds and once outside of a COVID-19 testing center.
For months, the UNC-Chapel Hill seniors talked about taking a cross-country road trip because they thought it would be the safest way to travel during the pandemic. Besides, they wanted to celebrate Li’s early graduation from UNC.
“This is the last time that we’ll really enjoy being together,” McAlister said. “This is a sendoff for her into the real world.”
To minimize the risk of exposure to COVID-19, the women decided to travel in a campervan that they could sleep in. They also looked for testing sites in the cities they planned to visit so they could keep track of their health.
For McAlister, the road trip was her first time going west of Tennessee.
“I got to experience a lot of different cultures and a lot of different lifestyles along the way that I’ve not been exposed to,” she said.
On the road
The trip started in Orlando, Florida, with a plan to reach San Francisco, California, and see as many national parks as they could.
The women took turns driving. As each driver took the wheel, the music and the vibe changed. Beals played folk music. Williams played classical music. Li played a mix of genres. McAlister played electronic dance music and house music which Li said the students started to appreciate more by the end of the trip.
Most nights, they slept in the back of the campervan, which folded down into a queen-sized bed.
“We didn’t sleep comfortably, but it fit the four of us,” McAlister said.
To pass the time, they made Tik Toks and dreamed of becoming famous on the app for their travel vlogs. They also listened to podcasts like “Call Her Daddy,” and had conversations about faith and spirituality.
Li, Beals and Williams are Christian; McAlister doesn’t identify with a specific religion.
“I was teaching them my way of thinking about the universe and about energies, while they were also teaching me more about how they see their religion,” McAlister said.
Li said there were moments when she got time to herself in the back of the campervan.
“At the end of the day, we’ve lived together for months and weren’t sick of each other,” Li said. “In these three weeks, we didn’t get sick of each other.”
After each stop on the road, the women would debrief about their experiences and check in to make sure everyone felt OK.
“We knew that we had to look out for each other,” McAlister said. “We had to take our gender into consideration, so I think that was another thing that kept us all sane with each other.”
McAlister’s mother was concerned about possible dangers on the road and gave her daughter a hammer to keep under her pillow. For McAlister, it was empowering.
“We didn’t have to use the hammer, we didn’t have to use pepper spray, but we had to take those things into consideration,” McAlister said.
As the landscapes changed, so did the culture.
During a hike in Yosemite, McAlister remembers how clear blue the sky was and the birds chirping in the trees.
“Every rustle of wind, you could hear the trees move,” McAlister said. “It’s so calming, almost as if you’re in meditation.”
From there, they drove into the on-the-go startup culture of San Francisco.
“One part of my life is very calm, and then the other part is just on-the-go all the time,” McAlister said. “Seeing that in America, just in one day, how it just flipped, was really cool.”
Staying conscious of the pandemic
Going into the trip, all the students were very conscious of the pandemic, so they were careful about where they stopped.
“It definitely was in the forefront of our mind because we knew what we were doing was really risky,” McAlister said.
The women got their first test in Arizona. Five days later, they received their results and one was positive. The person with the positive test did not feel any symptoms, so they decided to spend the night outside of another testing center.
Luckily, the second test came back negative.
Beals and McAlister, the two planners on the trip, decided that if someone tested positive again, the group would immediately drive back to North Carolina.
After another positive test in Denver, Colorado, the travelers ended the trip a day early. Instead of a planned stop in St. Louis, Missouri, they drove for a straight 27 hours to return home and quarantine.
“The second time, I think everyone was like, ‘It’s OK. It’s going to be good because we’ll get to go home to North Carolina and get tested there where we trust the testing sites where we’ve gotten tested before and we’ll be home,” Li said.
In different parts of the country, McAlister remembers how the culture of the area was reflected in the attitudes towards the pandemic.
“We’re pumping gas at a gas station and every single person, including the workers, are not wearing masks,” McAlister said. “That was probably the biggest disconnect between us and them. Out in California, we didn’t see anything like that. They were taking COVID very, very seriously. They wouldn’t even let us go into gas stations to use the restrooms because all of the restrooms were closed down.”
Lessons learned
McAlister said her experience on the trip was a way to think about how she could one day make a change in some of the places they visited.
“I got to experience how life was in different cities, specifically New Orleans or San Francisco where there’s a huge homeless population,” McAlister said. “That was something I had to sit and really reflect on and still reflect on. I have to understand there is a really big amount of privilege to go on this trip in general.”
Li said the weeks she spent traveling with her friends gave them the chance to see each other at times of panic but also at times of extreme joy and love for one another.
“I think I would just tell my kids or grandkids or whatever, ‘You should just go and do it. Have fun, because those opportunities really don’t get to come’,” Li said.
