Strangers When We Meet

© Ken Bingenheimer / RumBum.com

It’s a typical first-timer's scenario. You’re on your motorcycle headed for a town where you’ve made arrangements to spend the night with some total strangers. The nearer you get, the more you have second thoughts. Will these people be weird? Will you be uncomfortable? Will you have to spend time with them? This is not, after all, a bed and breakfast; this is the Motorcycle Travel Network (MTN) and you’re going to be stepping into their lives of strangers and spending the night.

Talk to most members of the MTN, and the answer you’ll get to that question is a resounding “No!” First-time jitters aside, traveling via the MTN can be an incomparable experience, and turn a good trip into a fabulous trip.

For the uninitiated, the MTN offers its members inexpensive lodging (you are, after all, staying in someone's house, maybe even sleeping on someone's couch), local experts and riders who can direct you to the best roads, and the opportunity to meet new people – and maybe even new friends.

The brainchild of Christi and Scott Reynolds, MTN bills itself as “The only Bed and Breakfast network for the traveling motorcycle enthusiast.”

How it Works

Membership into the MTN is $30 per year. Members can can host other travelers, stay with other members on their own travels, or both. To host, simply put your contact information up on the MTN website and travelers coming your way will contact you to arrange their stay. They'll even pay you – the going rate (to cover expenses) is $15 for one person, $20 for two, and $10 each for additional guests. Hosts specify on their profile how many people they can accommodate. Arrangements for dinner are not specified, but in many cases the host invites the guest(s) to dine with them. The host generally provides breakfast.

The MTN in Action

Joe Warner used MTN connections the first time on a trip to Richmond, VA, staying 10 nights with 8 hosts. He was typically apprehensive at first, and he was more comfortable with some of his hosts than others, but altogether it was a very positive experience. Warner didn’t mention the MTN to his wife, Susan, however, until the first time he was contacted to host someone.

At that point he had to tell her and he was nervous. As it turned out, “She’s into Zen and this fellow was Oriental and into Tai Chi. It couldn’t have been a better match.”

Warner recently stayed for two nights with hosts in Denver who had a couple from Lethbridge, Alberta, who were also staying two nights, with one night overlap. With a good home-cooked dinner, liquid refreshment, a lot of talk about motorcycles as well as other topics, and a great deal of laughter, nobody got to bed early that night.

This was the first time as guests for the Canadian couple, Ken and Janet Knox, and they had stopped to talk about what to do if their hosts turned out to be people they were not comfortable with. They agreed to do what they always do in an uncomfortable situation:

“Ken talks for both of us,” Janet says.

“When I get nervous I talk,” Ken admits.

And about two minutes after they arrived, Ken was telling their host that he was no longer talking a lot because he was nervous, but because he felt right at home.

When Ken and Janet left two days later, they were leaving as friends.