Night One: Our First Night Couchsurfing

For those who do not know the lengths we will go to in order to claim that we "did it our way," we are staying sixteen of the twenty nights on the road in the homes of total strangers.  This afternoon, we arrived to the home of a 72-year-old woman named Judy whom we met via www.couchsurfing.org.

Couchsurfing is a "hosting site" that Jenna discovered when she was looking for a house swap website.  Well, she found a house swapping website which had at the bottom of the page "This is not a hosting site."  Naturally, Jenna put into google (I suppose on the balance an asset of the world wide web) "hosting site" and couchsurfing came up.

Upon exploring the couchsurfing site, it became clear to Jenna that this is how we all should travel (or, at the very least, how her family would travel):  Look up where you want to go and then -- after entering various search parameters -- find the idea "match."  When traveling with four children, the ideal match is someone who is willing to say "sure, I've got room."

The beauty of couchsurfing is it's "pay-it-forward" kind of bent.  There is no obligation to host, though we do.  In fact, we have hosted families from Spain, France, and Italy.  And while there is no obligation to be hosted after extending one's generosity, our family has three open invitations for destinations across "the pond."  We are all set when it comes to a European vacation.  And, to top of the destination, we have people we like who are willing to show us around.

The photo is of the children with Judy walking down the "back alley" she played in as a child in the 40's and 50's.