Travel cheaply & safely in a vintage Ferrari

[jcwconsult]

Most Ferrari owners (and their insurance companies) want Ferraris garaged or otherwise safely stored overnight. There is a cheap way to do this, and meet interesting new people. The "secret" is private bed and breakfast clubs. If over 50, look at www.evergreenclub.com. If over 40 and/or travel a lot overseas, look at www.affordabletravelclub.net (many more members overseas than Evergreen). We joined both.

The idea is that you have a viable guest bedroom and are willing to host other travelers on occasion. Members will, in turn, usually host you. With Evergreen, the cost is $15/night for a couple with breakfast, with Affordable it is $20 in the USA and $30 overseas. Club membership is $75/year. Overall, we think the clubs cut our travel costs by a third.

For FCA2007, we stayed 4 nights in Pinecity outside of Corning for a total of 4 x $15 = $60. As a bonus, the route to their country house had 6 miles of wonderful twisty mountain roads. We went on to Binghampton for 2 more nights for another $30. The people in Pinecity were so nice that we returned for a day so our grandson could spend a day out with their granddaughter.

When emailing a request, I attach a car picture and say "We have an ususual request, and please feel free to say no if it doesn't work for you. We are driving our Ferrari and insurance rules require that it be garaged or otherwise protected overnight." Then I ask about the dates, and also tell them that a ride is part of the deal. The people we have asked almost always say "Please come, we will give you our garage, and we would love to have a ride."

In 25 visits to homes in 4 countries (several with the Ferrari), we have never had a bad experience. Similarly, none of the 6 visitors to our home have created any problems for us. As you might expect, members tend to be successful, well educated, middle or upper class people who like to travel. In the directory listings, you see their interests and we list Ferrari as one of ours. It has been great fun to meet new people, and you get good local knowledge about sights-restaurants-etc. for free. If you like people, and want to save money traveling, we highly recommend the clubs.

[larryingreenback]

Thanks for this valuable info Jim!

I live in a 153 year old house on the National Register of Historic Places and would welcome an occasional visitor, especially those who are petrol heads.

Larry B.

[jcwconsult]

We have always been welcomed wherever we went, and our visitors have usually been interesting as well. One man in Kansas bought all the stored murals from the US exhibit at the 1895 Chicago Worlds Fair and is having some restored to museum quality for display. A family in Italy had lived for 20 years in Zimbabwe, later driven out by Mugabe and allowed to take nothing with them. They gave us two dinners for free and told us how they started over in Italy. A guy in Santa Fe has serious music concerts in his home, and also gave us dinner. A man in England started his working life with just a technical diploma in hydraulics, and retired as the chief engineer at a nuclear power plant. That home dated to 1711 and the wife was born in the house. The range is fascinating.

With the Ferrari, it was particularly helpful to have our own garage the day before the FCA2007 Concours, to clean off the bugs and travel dirt.