My apologies for the delay in getting to this, but we'd like to introduce you to a wonderful family from Maine who bookdocked at our house a few weeks ago. As a reminder, boondocking is when you stay in your RV off-the-grid somewhere. There's a website that we are members of called Boondocker's Welcome (there's a link to it on the middle of our home page!) Boondocker's Welcome is a site where campers and hosts can connect with each other. If you have a place large enough where RV-ers can park for the night, you register on the site and put all of your info there such as how large of an RV you can accommodate, your approximate location (not your actual address), some profile info, whether you have hookups like electric, water, or sewer for the RV-er to use, and whether you will allow guests to run their generator or bring pets. We have a pretty big driveway and live close to a major city (Cincinnati), so we get lots of requests for people to stay in our driveway. We find that RV-ers tend to be very polite, courteous, and interesting people and no, we have not had ANY issues with having "strangers" stay in our driveway. Likewise, when we travel and just need a place to park overnight to sleep, we simply go to the Bookdocker's Welcome site, check the map for the area that we happen to be, and look for hosts in that area. We look up their profiles and read any recommendations that other members have given them, and then contact them via email to discuss staying there. Only after both parties feel comfortable and agree on the arrangement do the hosts give out their address. (The traveler giving as much advanced notice as possible is key, of course!)
So anyway, back to Melissa . . . Melissa is a road tripper from Maine who took her two lovely daughters out of school for a year to travel the entire USA. You can follow their adventures on their website - Our Wandering Ways. They travel in a little Winnebago View (a small diesel class C on a Mercedes Sprinter chassis that's very similar to our RV - in fact the View is what we were looking to buy when we purchased our Solera.) Melissa and her girls had been all over the eastern US, back to Maine because of some mechanical difficulties, and were setting out again heading westward. They stayed at our place for one night after exploring Columbus, Ohio. The next day they were looking to catch some of Cincinnati's sights before heading to Indianapolis and beyond.
What we learned from Melissa and her girls was that there are other families out there who value travel and exploration as part of kids' learning experiences. While we sort of have to cram all of our adventures into the summer months because of our current jobs, Melissa has selected to take the "One Year Off" route (a great book by David Elliot Cohen, by the way). We dream of the day when we can finally hit the road full-time, but until then, we'll have to live vicariously through the travelers that come our way. Check out Melissa's website and if you run into them, tell them "hello" from their friends at Just a Nutter Road Trip!
