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  • January 27, 2016 at 3:33 PM #21856
    admin
    Keymaster

    I read nomadic matt’s nytimes best selling book on how to travel the world on $50 a day.

    Would you do couch surfing either as a guest or host? Would you allow your young adult children to couch surf around the world.

    I’m tempted to open my guest room (no, not my bedroom) to some nice travelers. But how would you screen out the crazies? Don’t want to end up a murder victim.

    January 27, 2016 at 3:55 PM #793620
    bearishgurl
    Participant

    Over 10 years ago, I joined a ride-sharing website to meet people who regularly traveled to the same states that I did. I DID meet a couple of nice local (SD County) people (one was a senior couple) who had relatives in the same states and frequented cities nearby to the ones I do.

    I think I would have tried this out with one or both parties that I met and conversed with on the phone. But as it turned out, shortly after that, I lost two more close family members to death (whom I had been staying with when I traveled to those cities) so I never ended up traveling with them.

    I know this is not the same as “couch surfing,” but one DOES have to trust the person(s) with whom they’re putting their luggage in their trunk and and driving cross-country with (or vice versa) . I mean, after all, I could easily have been shot and my body dumped in the desert between Deming and Lordsburg (NM) and no one would have been the wiser :=0

    January 27, 2016 at 4:17 PM #793621
    bearishgurl
    Participant

    I may have posted here before that one of my kids let a bedroom and attached bath out of their SF flat using AirB&B for about 2-3 years. They had a pushbutton combo lock on the front door which got changed after every “guest” checked out. They had housekeeping come in every time a guest checked out and put everything back together in there like a hotel room. They didn’t do anything special to the rest of the house and left laptops and other valuables sitting around the living room (though I’m not sure they did while at work) and never got anything stolen. AFAIK, they never got any “crazies” …. only grateful guests who were able to get a room and a bath for at least 30% less than a local hotel room (with cooking facilities if they wished) and sans the TOT. Of course, it helped that they were on a bus line and a 1.5 block walk to another busline and less than a mile from SoMA, which is a big transportation hub in SF (and SF public transportation is very cheap).

    I think they netted +/- $70 per night when all was said and done (they gave discounts for a week’s stay).

    You have to be willing to tolerate someone coming and going in/out of your house at all hours of the night due to being out partying like the tourist that they are.

    January 27, 2016 at 5:41 PM #793622
    FlyerInHi
    Guest

    I love it, bearish.

    I perceive you as old fashioned but you’re really modern and sporty — a healthy skier with a can-do attitude. You should be proud that your kids are successful, self-sufficient, and entrepreneurial. They won’t be moving back home to smooch off of you.

    Airbnb is cool. But couch surfing is free and a way to pay forward. Plus I think you can pick and choose the “deserving” guests you want to welcome. I have never used the website but nomadic Matt and Ted talk speakers have mentioned it.

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