Posted March 06, 2019in Couch Surfing
A mysterious orange ring around the tub, overpriced beer and the rules of couch surfing Faithful readers, this is my final Couch Surfing column for CITYVIEW. It has been a great experience sharing my experiences for the past two years, and I have had some amazing guests who have become
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Posted February 06, 2019in Couch Surfing
I don’t typically hang out with my couch surfers, mainly because I am busy with my own life, and my guests are just trying to pass through on their way to their real destination. But Michael Miller of Kansas City was traveling to a number of cities with one single
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Posted January 02, 2019in Couch Surfing
Highway construction worker offers advice on holiday weight, personal time and bike paths. Due to the upcoming “no one works” holidays, all of us writers had early deadlines. So… confession! My January couch surfer actually stayed with me back in early November. Twenty-eight-year-old Eric Garst (no relation to the seed
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Posted December 05, 2018in Couch Surfing
And a Waffle House mug Ryan and his daughter Meghan traveled up from Springfield, Missouri, to stay with me on their way to Duluth, Minnesota. They were on their way to visit his brother before they headed back down to Madison to spend Thanksgiving with his folks. I don’t get
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Posted October 31, 2018in Couch Surfing
Maybe millennials just do things backwards. Fall wedding season is in full effect, and I have had to turn away a few travelers coming through town due to the volume I have been receiving. In some ways, it is exciting that more and more people are couch surfing as a
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Posted October 03, 2018in Couch Surfing
His wife thinks he is just on a food tour. He says she is half right. Out of the gate, I need to be up front that this month’s couch surfer was not a complete stranger. The two of us were strangers, however, until we had mutual friends who dropped
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Posted September 05, 2018in Couch Surfing
Chad from Amsterdam is one of my new favorite humans. Every year I get some traveler from outside of the U.S. who passes through Des Moines while on a cross country trek (usually from Manhattan to San Francisco). My first experience was with two young men from Germany who were
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Posted August 01, 2018in Couch Surfing
Guru Higgins (as he wants to be called) has traveled to Iowa from Vermont while on his way to Montana. His opening line on his email to me was “looking to check out Des Moines, cook you a meal, and show you some yoga moves.” I don’t do yoga, and
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Posted July 04, 2018in Couch Surfing
“It’s nice to be in an environment that does not include animal excrement for once.” Lisa comes from Manhattan, Kansas, to take part in a veterinary externship. Although she was not around much, she had a two-week stay in Des Moines while she visited different farms as part of a
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Posted June 06, 2018in Couch Surfing
Meet Anne and Lin, two newlyweds from Houston, Texas, who recently decided to rent out their home and live in an RV. They drove all the way from deep Texas to Forest City to purchase their first RV from the largest Winnebago dealer in North America. The two women stopped
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