You will get a variety of answers to this, but my answer is you cannot
count that time towards your IR.

A safety pilot is required only when the other pilot is wearing a view
liimting device. Since takeoffs and landings are done visually, a
safety pilot is not required during these portions. Therefore, you
could be PIC only during the enroute portion.

However, since a cross country flight must involve a takeoff and
landing, just the enroute portion does not qualify as XC time.

In reality, it would be fooling to log PIC XC time for any flight that
you did not plan yourself.