Before I left for my trip I joined an online travelers' community called Couchsurfing, where members can look for places to stay or offer to host others in their homes.
My first 'hookup' so-to-speak was at Noah Porch's home in Nashville.
Porch, 29, drives around this cool 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle. He works as a program analyst and has been "doing the couch surfing thing" since 2005. During that time, he's graciously played host to a large number of travelers, but has yet to be a surfer, himself.
"I backpacked through the UK when I was 18. I wish I'd have had it
then. I'm sure I'll use it (as a surfer, not a host) at one point," he
says.
He lives in a house about three miles from downtown with two of his brothers, also in their late twenties. The guys all have girlfriends and the girlfriends have dogs. Noah and his girlfriend, Mary Beth, recently rescued a 2-week-old Rottweiler puppy they found on their doorstep, in fact.
The night I arrived, they hosted a dinner with fresh fruit and Indian food. They let me bring Armani in and offered lots of great 'backdoor' Nashville suggestions.
It seems counterintuitive that professional people with busy lives would open their worlds to strangers, but that is the beauty of the Couchsurfing philosophy.
Says Noah: "Everyone is totally different, but everyone has the thing where they love to travel and love to see new things."
"The Nashville community is really cool," he adds. "They'll get together and have potlucks every second Sunday of the month."
He says those who crash with him are "usually people that are not very materialistic. Really, anyone who is a traveler isn't very materialistic because you can't be. You can't have a bunch of crap holding you down."
"I haven't had a bad experience," he adds. "Everyone is on their way somewhere, so no one's really imposing."
I loved meeting him and his friends and learning from them. It was also a much needed oasis for Armani and I to recoup and catch up on cleaning and posting, as we'd been feeling pretty ravaged by the unabated heat.