I had never heard of such a thing so I went to their site. Easy to start, register at the web site. Build a profile. I think I had to send a copy of my drivers license and it is possible there was even a mailed out post card to my home address with a PIN on it I had to confirm. That inspired some confidence people are who they say they are. But, those are the easy things. The next step is actually the most difficult. The web site is built on an Ebay style feedback system. On Ebay, you don’t bid on things and send money to sellers who have zero feedback. It works the same way when taking in a couch surfer. Nobody invites (particularly my non-traditional demographic --I’ll get to that later) a user with no feedback into their home.
I had to send out maybe three dozen couch requests before I heard back from one. The absolute only reason she wrote me back was because I happened to notice we attended the same college a few years apart. My alma mater was my in. I wrote, talked about school, and had a connection. She is an aspiring photographer and I used to be in the business. We talked depth of field, the inverse square law, and hyperfocal distances. After that she offered to meet in a public location. We met first in a bar over some beer and conversation. Then, a couple of weeks later I landed on her sofa for an overnight. She gave me good feedback and I was able to parlay that into a few more landing spots. Couch surfing is not monetary. You don’t pay your host or anyone else. You are expected to provide good conversation and not leave a mess.
I have another friend who thinks this whole thing is crazy. She totally can’t figure out why someone would want to host. “LET STRANGERS INTO MY HOME ARE YOU NUTS?!” She was amazed it isn’t a plague of crime but it really isn’t. It’s all pretty safe. She was surprised couples would open their home but even more surprised as I filled her in more. That demographic I spoke of. Like I have told The Wife, I can’t help it the overwhelming majority of couches are owned by 24 to 27 year old college educated females. Mostly attractive too, sad to say. ;-) It seems to me what happens is they finish college, take a trip to Europe and find a plethora of couches to stay at over there. They enjoy it so much they come back and decide they want some of the same experience.
The places I stayed ranged from a turn of the century house where I had my own bedroom and four cats who wanted to sleep with me. Or, to the other end of the spectrum an efficiency apartment where I was sleeping on the sofa about a double arms length from where a young couple slept in their bed. Without exception it was a positive experience. But, I have to be “on” all the time. Being on, as an introvert, is work and I don't want to work day and night.
At the campground I stay there is a group of several young people who have modified a school bus into living space. School buses it seems sell pretty reasonably priced. The bodies are always well cared for and in perfect condition, literally never any rust, but they do have a ton of miles. 400,000 is not at all out of the norm for the ~$6000 used bus. Diesel engine, I suppose that’s barely broken in. To start there are more square feet in a bus than in any camper I could afford. That would be nice. Insulation would be tough though with all the windows. The kids at camp have added an entire second story to their bus. It has a large deck and a bedroom screened on all eight sides of an octagon sitting on top. I *really* wish I could have gotten a picture of it but it was always dark when I saw it there. So far the added structure is built using OSB (chipboard) and it looks as redneck as anything I have ever seen up here in the hinterland. They said once they get the final design in place they will fiberglass it. …Which could look like either the coolest thing ever or something out of a Mad Max movie, I can’t quite decide. Either way I had to evaluate my willingness to be driving around in a school bus that looks like a UFO used it for a runway. Driving it with a big smile on my face is something my wife would likely throw under the category of reasons she is sometimes embarrassed to be seen with me. I try to avoid those.
The bus idea suffers from the same transportation issues as a camper though. I’d have to pay for it to sit at the campground seven days a week. I thought some about renting it over the weekends as an AirBnB. You gotta agree, it would be a unique listing. "Two bedroom school bus with all the amenities, weekends only…." But that all seemed kind of complicated.
Number One Son was full of ideas as well. He started sending me Craigslistings of conversion vans. Some of those vans are pretty swanky. They have a "hightop" or extension onto the roof that makes the van taller. In such a van, down the centerline, I might be able to stand straight up. They seemed to be minimally outfitted to be some type of camper. Doing some reading about them though I found they tended to be under insulated. Hard to heat. Under powered battery-wise. The might be great for traveling across the country. Drive all day, pull into a campground. Plug in and sleep until morning when you take off again. Not more than a night or two off the grid. This option though was not at all cheap. A conversion van you could do some living out of was a $40,000 investment for something in the ~120,000 mile range.
Where else could I park though? On the cheap, that is, or better yet free. Because it’s not just my kids. Vans like this stick out. People notice them and if they see one they automatically suspect there is someone lurking inside it. Police get called.
So no, a conversion van won’t work either. I need something…. something…. stealthy.
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