When planning a trip to the Olympics: It's good to know people. As you could probably guess, staying at a hotel during an event like this would in all likelihood cost you to finance another mortgage. When the world comes to an event like this, hotel prices are at an all-time high. With the price of event tickets, food and entertainment, the cost of taking in the Olympics can come with a pretty hefty price tag. During the planning of this trek across the country, one of the key questions was: where do we stay? Between Lane and I, we both had a few friends in the Vancouver area that were summoned to help us out with a place to crash. All we needed were a couple of couches.

All in all there were 4 separate stops on our tour with 8 unique couches sampled throughout the duration of our trip. While we don't consider ourselves "couch snobs", it's important to know that all of the couches that we crashed on met the following criteria:

Each couch had:

a) An important combination of softness and firmness.

b) An adequate selection of pillows and cushions.

c) Comfort factor (AKA: having the ability to sleep for 4 hours and feel like you slept for 8)

When we got off the train, we checked in to the 1st stop on the couch surfing tour. Not really knowing the Vancouver downtown area, our first "home" in Vancouver was located in Gastown at Lane's friend Lucy's condo. Right off the bat, we were completely spoiled with 2 massive couches in an amazing new condo building overlooking the entire Vancouver harbour. What a way to kick things off...

It's important to note that Lucy's condo is on the same level as Fort Knox as far as security goes. Due to some excessiveness at the Holland Heineken House, Lane and I found ourselves with an added bonus - camped out on 2 additional chairs in the condo's main lobby for nearly 2 hours as we tried to crack the Fort Knox security system and get back up to the 17th floor... mission accomplished...at 4:30am!

The 2nd stop on our tour took us to East Vancouver. Where our gracious hosts and friends of mine, Brad and Hilary offered up 2 of the softest couches on the trip. You know those couches that are sooo soft that you instantly melt into them when you sit/lie down? Well, that's what these were like. Thankfully Brad and Hilary still had these couches in play for us when we arrived as they were in the process of packing up to move... thanks guys!

The 3rd of 4 stops on the Zed & Lane cross-country trek to us to Whistler village and a lovely, spacious sectional sofa at Lane's friend Kristen and Johnny's place. This HUGE sofa had an extremely high pillow to cushion ratio. In fact, there were so many cushions on this sofa that at times both of us were smothered by the massiveness of the sectional!

The final stop on the trip took us back to downtown Vancouver at our friends Erin and Noah's loft located right next to the Olympic Village. After a night of celebrating Canada's win over Slovakia in the semi-final hockey game, we arrived back to the condo and were greeted to an unfolded pull-out couch - A trip first! After an intense best of 5 match of paper, rock, scissors - it was determined that Lane would get the pull-out the first night, and I would get it the second. Luckily we came prepared for such a situation, fully equipped with sleeping bags and mats... score!

Needless to say, our gracious hosts hooked us up LARGE throughout the entire trip and were more than accommodating on every level. So, when planning a trip in a city where you have a few connections just remember - scout out the couches and ride the wave.

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