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
