BootsnAll Travel Community

This is an amazing organisation for meeting local people wherever you travel. We have been hosts for 15 years and had some relly interesting people stay with us. But a word of caution, this is not intended to enable party hopping, booze swilling, screw anything travellers to get cheap accommodation but is for the traveller who is interested enough to meet the locals and spend time with them.
Type Servas into google and find your local contact.

Yep, Servas.net is your site is it not, and as was explained to me by a hitchiker I had picked up in NZ, it has the qualities you mention and is a more regulated way of couchsyrfing or hospitality.org in that to join, you have to apply and be interviewed by a regional co-ordinator, or that is how it was explained to me anyway.

Ironically, I had picked up this lass as I was just dropping off another Hitcher near Tongariro N.P and we were less than a few hundred kilometres from where a girl had been murderd less than a weel earlier - she having apparently been hitching too.
She asked me if I was going near Palmerston North, in the Wellington direction where I was heading, and I thought "strange choice - not really renowned as a tiuristy place", and then she tells me about Servas, and has her listing of members etc., and perhaps it was her english ability (eastern european)but she said you do not have to worry on phoning ahead and announcing your intentions which I thought a little odd.

Anyway, did the chivalrous and generous thing by going out of my way a little to take her to Palmie, find the address and around we go, and then she starts asking me, do you think it'll be OK etc., as no car in drive, and I says, I'll knock on the door while you get your gear out.

It turns out that the people who are the Servas Hosts have gone to Cambodia for 12 months, and the people staying in the house are G.O.s(maybe not B&Allers) from the US and have no idea of Servas.
I'm near an expert by this stage and because of whatever her names was less than perfect English, in typical aussie backpacker style I give them a quick run down, and alls well.

A few minutes down the road to Welly, and the cogs are crunching a bit, and I's thinking - "hope the hosts are really in Cambodia and there's not a grave dug out the back for international serial killers"!, but No Greg, you've just got too imaginative a mind thinking the hitcher is the next victim.

But just goes to show

"Even the strongest of chains is only as good as the winkest link"

Those hosts no doubt should have notified someone and the system needs an updates check process for it to work as safe as it should, but good system all the same.

heard of it? yes. what i like is that you have to be interviewed in order to be a member which probaly filters out some of the total freaks...a similar minded but bare-bones (as far as how hard it is to get in) option is couchsurfing.com. servas has a long history and a good rep.

zopa
(who, by the way, knows a little bit about everything)

ps
my friends learned that "naturist" means "nudist" not "nature lover" she and her family learned this when they opted to stay with a naturist family in sweden one time through servas.

opps

Gonorth, Strange that your hiker did not have to phone ahead. Most hosts stipulate how much noitce they need. I suppose those particular ones did not require any notice.

We have been hosts in Durban since 1995 and have made friends fromm all over the world. Now when I travel I do not use the host list, but stay with people who stayed with us.

Can appreciate the benefit you are getting from your involvement Oddearing, and way it should form networking.

I just think that the lasses english level perhaps lead to a misunderstanding as I would have thought a phone ahead would pretty much be commonsense.

Checked out the Servas site, downloaded the application and will try and join before my trip this fall. As I'll be 40 this fall, I am beyond most of the youthful craziness from my earlier trips, and Servas seems like a great way to exchange cultural and social ties with people all over. Plus as a peace loving liberal hippy (dont let the short hair and the responsible job fool you) who also went to a Quaker college, the Servas mission is right up my ally. I may also go WWOOFing at times to have an alternative way to meet and interact with locals during my trip. I dont know oddearing if SA is on my itinerary, but if it is you may meet me eventually. Have fun in Israel. Try to climb Masada before sunrise. It's fantastic

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Plus as a peace loving liberal hippy (dont let the short hair and the responsible job fool you) who also went to a Quaker college, the Servas mission is right up my ally.

Flackattack, have you thought of "Mennonite Your Way"? They don't advertise, but they are open to those of a Christian faith, and the Mennonites are a peace church also. They work much the same way as SERVAS.

Thanks for the tip gg. However I am needing non-denominational peace lovers since I am not a Christian. Peace is Patriotic.

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Peace is Patriotic.

Agreed. We'll probably also be trying the WWOOF thing--I'm really excited about that.