8 ways I'm road tripping differently in the age of coronavirus

• After writing a guide to safely road-tripping during the COVID-19 pandemic, I decided to take my own advice.
• I made sure to sanitize everything and took care to minimize rest stops.
• It wasn't that different from normal road-tripping, you just have to get into the right headspace.

You shouldn't be in the business of giving away advice if you aren't prepared to take it yourself, which is why I went on a road trip recently to see how everything would play out.

In June, I wrote about the best tips and practices you should take to keep yourself safe if you wanted to take a road trip this summer. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, most people probably don't feel safe flying right now, so they're turning to cars to get out of the house for a change of scenery.

I felt the same urge. The city, whose charm for me was already rapidly diminishing even before the virus, is even less appealing right now. The gyms are all closed and with the temperature steadily rising, I saw no reason to stay here any longer.

We figured out overnight accommodations in advance

Luckily, my boyfriend's family is from Vermont and we were invited to stay there for a few days. Vermont is just far enough that we'd feel like we really "got away" from it all. And the house would be vacant for a few days before we'd arrive, thus satisfying Item Five of my advice column, which is "Sanitize your overnight accommodations."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that "transmission of novel coronavirus to persons from surfaces contaminated with the virus has not been documented."

Despite this, though, upon our arrival, we gave frequently touched surfaces — door knobs, light switches, desks, toilets, sinks, faucets, refrigerator handles — a wipe down.

Sanitize everything with the "zone" method

But even before we left, we were careful. The way I broke it all down in my head was that there were three clean "zones" we would occupy: our apartment, the car, and the house. Within those zones, we wouldn't need to worry about masks and were free to eat and touch our faces. Anything traveling between those three zones would need to be disinfected upon entering.

So we wiped down the luggage cart we used to move all our stuff down from the apartment and also wiped the car's door handles, steering wheel, key, and seat adjustment switches down after collecting it from the garage attendant.

Keep the hand sanitizer and wipes handy

The more than five-hour drive up from Brooklyn was largely uneventful. We made sure to eat dinner and use the bathroom before we left in an effort to reduce visits to rest stops. But just in case we did, we kept the hand sanitizer, our masks, and all the sanitizing wipes within easy reach. We also packed big bottles of water and a bunch of food if anyone wanted a snack.

We also kept to the speed limit. I don't speed, but knowing that others might, I always took note of who and what was around me at all times.

Thankfully, the Aviator SUV that Lincoln loaned me (review to come) had quite a big fuel tank, so I didn't actually need to fill up again until it was time to come back.

Getting gas

I stopped at a gas station in Vermont and used a sanitizing wipe to wipe down the gas pump, credit card machine, and touchscreen before pumping gas.

I still pushed buttons with the wipe where I could. They are all frequently touched spots.

Once I finished pumping, I also wiped down my credit card before returning it to my wallet and used hand sanitizer.

There was traffic

What little traffic there was on the way up completely reversed on the way down.

On Sunday, July 5, it seemed like everyone in the entire world was driving southbound on New York Interstate 87. The speed limit on that road is 65 mph. The fastest I went once we passed Lake George was maybe 55 mph. For as far as the eye could see, miles and miles of traffic glittered in the hazy summer sun. What should have been a breezy 5.5-hour trip quickly turned into a seven-hour odyssey.

I've driven back to the city during this holiday weekend before and I don't quite remember it ever being that bad. I did notice an uptick in campers and RVs, however, lending credence to reports of demand for mobile homes skyrocketing during the pandemic.

Rest stop

We made one stop while on I-87 to use the bathroom. Everyone inside was dutifully wearing masks, except for one woman who infuriatingly kept hers around her chin.

A reminder to all: a mask around your chin is about as effective as wearing a bicycle helmet around your neck — which is to say, completely useless. I made sure to wash my hands well before getting back into the car.

Keep your masks on

I breathed a sigh of relief when I crossed the New Jersey border. Not because this is where I'm from and I was relieved to be back among my people, but because in New Jersey, you don't pump your own gas.

With my mask on, I rolled my window down and handed my credit card over to the gas station attendant, who was also wearing a mask. While we waited for the tank to fill, my boyfriend unloaded some snacks for us to share from one of the bags of groceries in the trunk.

There was no need to visit the mini-mart, but I noticed, with immediate fury, a group of five people come out of the mini-mart, clutching their purchases, and without the hint of a mask in sight. They took their time getting back into their car, which they'd inconveniently parked at a gas pump even though they were not buying gas.

After the attendant handed me my card back, I also wiped it down with a sanitizing wipe.

Once we returned to our apartment building, we put our masks back on, disinfected the luggage cart, and brought everything back upstairs.

Be defensive

All in all, nothing was really too different than what we'd normally do. But there was a tangible sense of safety and security while inside the car. It came from knowing that we'd done a thorough job of disinfecting both everything that came into the car and the inside of the car itself in order to relax on the road.

Driving, it was business as normal. I just treated high-trafficked situations outside of the car like lava — I didn't touch it or get close to it. Is this obsessive and bordering on paranoia? Absolutely! But as there is still much we don't know about this virus, I'm perfectly willing to take as many precautions as possible in order to stay safe.

In fact, a lesson I was taught in driver's ed while in high school applies beautifully here: you should always drive defensively and always watch out for the other people. Even if you are the best driver in the world, they can still cause problems.