Hey everybody, I wanted to share an amazing website with you called
couchsurfing.org. Claudia (my wonderful fabulous Guatamalan princess of a lover) and I have been using the website to travel around the United States this year on our epic big little journey.
Couchsurfing.org goes around the hospitality industry and straight to the heart of old school traveling. It allows people to view other people's profiles which is full of references from our travelers, and to send couchsurfing requests to stay with them for a period of time (free of charge of course). So instead of staying in a hotel, you stay with the locals who sometimes provide you with a place to crash be it a couch, guest house, place to camp... Sometimes they're busy and it's just a place to shower and sleep, other times they take you out on a night on the town, or you collaborate with your hosts to make extravagant dinners.
I feel those at Avalon would truly benefit from this experience as you can host travelers, and also travel and stay with other hosts.
When Claudia and I return to Maine, we cannot wait to host couchsurfers as it's wonderful to not only be a guest but a host too.
Couchsurfing has also a nice verification system in which involves a one time $25 donation that involves a three tier step to verify who you are. You can also request a reduced price for verification (ie financial hardship) which CS always accepts (such as paying only $5). As CS is a non-profit, may members continually donate to the organization to keep it going. The website is also full of forums and networking which can be very useful in itself.
Here is my CS profile if you want to check it out, and maybe even be your first reference. Thanks for reading and happy surfing!
http://www.couchsurfing.org/profile.html?id=ADS2SDP