Thank you for a Successful Roadtrip

The first-ever HomeAway roadtrip is done and we've had a couple days to reflect on it. The roadtrip was an intense 11 days, covering about 5,500 miles and 19 states. 

We met about 90 vacation rental owners at four different open houses. We also had a wide range of traveler experiences, from getting bad directions (we ended up at a building under construction before we straightened it out) to some trouble with a keyless entry system.

We saw a range of attractions, from biggest (fire hydrant) to smallest (church in America). We saw the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean and Boothbay Harbor. We checked out the gators in Louisiana, a Great Dane in Savanah, lots of cows in Vermont and a lobster in Maine. (Read all the roadtrip blog posts or watch the HomeAway videos on YouTube.)

To answer the second-most popular question we were asked during and after the trip: No, Chip and I didn't get sick of each other, want to abandon the trip and fly back or throw the other overboard along the way. Somehow we managed to spend 18 waking hours a day in a small space and come through OK. Just don't ask us to share the same bedroom. Ever. ;)

And, yes, Chip did all the driving, while I pretended to be a blogger. I'm still amazed he pulled it off.

We wanted to take a moment to thank all of the people who made this roadtrip successful. First, thanks to the owners of the properties where we hosted our events or laid our heads for the night. We also want to thank the vacation rental owners who came to our events. We learned a lot and enjoyed meeting so many good and interesting people. 

We also need to thank the many people we work with who supported us in one way or another: our IT operations team who hooked us up with MacBook Pro laptops and the rest of the gear that allowed us to post content from a moving vehicle; the Owner Community team for hooking us up with guestbooks and business cards to give away; and the design team, who created the car wrap, snow globe logo and other graphics we used for the trip.

Our extra special thanks goes to the public relations team: Danielle Kutchuk for tracking down snow globes for us to pick up on the way, Jaime Dito, who took our distressed phone call the first day and then flew in to help at our final open house, and Eileen Buesing, who saw the merit in the idea, helped us plan the roadtrip and loaned us her team to support us.

Along those lines, we need to thank Kristin Dorsett, who set up all the open house events, coordinated with the property owners and made sure we had a place to stay on each of the days of the open houses. Kristin also joined us in Florida, helping make sure the first two open house events were successful. The open houses wouldn't have happened without her hard work.

Of course we have to thank our managers, Kathy Wirt and Chris Warwick, who let us follow through on a crazy idea with only moderate disruption of work.

And finally we want to thank our CEO, Brian Sharples, who listened to our pitch, agreed to give the roadtrip a chance, and let us wrap his truck and drive it across the Gulf Coast, up the East Coast and back.

We can't be sure what the future holds, whether there will be another roadtrip and, if there is, what form it will take. For the moment, at least, we can be sure the roadtrip was an overall positive experience that should serve to improve the relationship between HomeAway and its customers. See the original map and premise behind the trip.