Ditto from here in the U.P. We have no confirmed cases in the western 4 counties and have a tiny hospital and an high number of retired people. Far too dangerous!

I live in a land of vacation homes too--about 2.5 hours from NYC. It's a concern. Even if they don't get sick, the increased population draws down the inventory in our grocery stores. That said, I do have sympathy for them. Although I've lived in this area full-time for 45 years, my husband and I came here as weekenders from NYC and we might very well have done the same thing.

Sleeper, you make a very good point. Both my DD’s left the city to stay in our suburban home. We are down south so I guess they would take our place hospital count wise.

Alisande, we used to have a weekend home about 2 hours away. While in this case scenario it would not be better to head there, I too would feel the right to utilize the home if we wanted to.

Big spat going on between year round residents at the NJ shore and vacation home owners . One says don’t use our resources and the other says I pay taxes just like you. It would be nice if the vacation home owners did their grocery shopping before arriving. If I got sick I’d rather be near the big city hospitals rather than the local small town hospitals. Here it’s two hours Or less back to the city so you could probably make it back. Second home owners.

Isn't traveling to your vacation home a violation of most shelter-in-place type of orders?

Ditto here for living in the land of vacation homes. I’m not complaining about them as we were second homeowners here before we made the permanent move and there are normally lots of advantages to having large seasonal population in terms of taxes and having amenities that our base population could not support without a health tourism industry. Our population more than doubles during peak times, in part because of second homeowners and part tourists. The ski resort is closed now, so that reduced the number of visitors and second homeowners are usually here either in the summer or ski season. However, the city just issued an order banning short term rentals for the next month or so, trying to keep population numbers down because of limited hospital capacity. We have an excellent hospital, but it is only 39 beds which is normally more than ample, but this is a new world. As of yesterday, we only had 3 diagnosed Covid cases in the county, none hospitalized yet. One is a second homeowner in his 80s though, the other two are young.

Interestingly, there's a middle situation too because not all "vacation homes" are in rural or isolated areas. Our second home, where we came for a short trip some weeks ago but have remained, is also in an area where vacation homes are common. But it's coastal SoCal, a busy populated essentially suburban area all the way down to the sand. Medical services abound here as at home, though our doctors are at home. We'll see, we can always go back if necess.

The State of Hawaii is CLOSED. Hawaiian Airlines has ONE flight a day, the HNL-LAX run. Nyah, nyah, Florida! You can't close shop like that. AFAIK Arizona is still living in la-la land with no closures.

We live remotely, on outer Cape Cod. Second homeowners coming to stay is a big issue here, as well as for the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. We'll see how things go...

Our second home is in the Palm Springs area (Cathedral City), and the Coachella Valley has a population of about 350,000, meaning that it has good hospital resources. Also, the Palm Springs AIDS Resource is switching over to a Covid-19 clinic, which is also helpful.

At this time, there are very few visitors to Palm Springs because most come from out of state, and so having a small influx of visitors from L.A. is not a big deal. Palm Springs is equipped to handle a huge influx of tourists, which it is not getting at this time. Everyone I have spoken with says that I should stay in Cathedral City, which is what I plan to do. I've already had my mail forwarded there for at least two months.

I can see closing rentals and campgrounds that have short term campers. If you OWN your house, it should not matter where you stay. It is your house.

We do not have a second home as such, but we have a permanent site for our fifth wheel. All sites are self contained. Each site is about 30 feet apart. It is only 35 minutes from our home. I always bring most things from home, and I would bring all this year. It is on the lake and we can fish without getting near anyone.

We do intend to use it and if we got sick, we would come back to the main residence. I cannot see how that would affect anyone, except the restaurants won't be getting our business.

The issue with people coming to a second home in a remote place is depletion of food, supplies, and medical care. And bringing the virus with them. This is a summer resort area because of the beaches, but very rural. We are a federally-designated medically underserved population, and our year round residents are disproportionately elderly.

We had a call yesterday from a Town Selectwoman asking my husband (age 66) if he could pick up the mail from a post office box for an 86-year-old widow and deliver it to her house.

If they pack in a three month supply of food and supplies and self isolate, or enough supplies for whatever amount of time they are there, I fail to see the problem. You can always go back if you start to run a fever for any reason.

Quite frankly, when we go, I don't want to see anyone anyway, and haven't. If you haven't guessed, I am an introvert and I am not having any problem self isolating.

Why bother if you are just 35 minutes away?

On the lake and we like to fish.

"It is on the lake and we can fish without getting near anyone."

We're more than 35 minutes from our small local hospital. Different strokes for different folks.