CURRENT MISSION

We're dreaming about traveling again in the future. Currently putting two kids through college.

Promoting CouchSurfing as a Family - We've been Vouched for and are Couchsurfing Pioneers (see our old school badges at the bottom).

ABOUT ME

We did this trip a few years ago. It's 2020 now! - We're gearing up to hit the road again in Hungary, Balkan Peninsula, Turkey and Greece in May-July 2015. We're excited about all the wonderful families we'll meet along the way through Couchsurfing!

We love CS as a family. Life is full, but you can still send a request, but chances are we won't be able to host you. We'll see how things look. We've been getting a lot of requests for people coming to conferences in San Jose. We would prefer to host travelers. Whatever the case, send us a request and maybe it will work out.

We had an AMAZING time CSing around Europe as a family. Now we're the biggest CS fans ever!

Follow our travels in Europe at: http://schertle.blogspot.com

We are an easy going family of four living in downtown San Jose. Our daughter is 14 and son 11. We love a walkable/bikeable community. I (Rick) am a public school teacher and Angie is a homeschool mom. We love to think outside the box and this is why we homeschool and travel.

We've traveled a lot with kids and without. Some of our biggest lessons in life have been learned on the road. Travel has shaped our world view in incredible ways that we can't even begin to describe. We want our kids to not wait to be told what they need to know to be an "educated person", but to explore and discover things on their own. This is why we travel and why we want to meet and learn from people from all corners of the world. You really get to know a place by getting to know the local people!

PHILOSOPHY

Do justice and love kindness...

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

We love hosting interesting folks from around the world in our simple but fun little house. We live in an urban but quiet older neighborhood with good access to public transit and easy parking. We have a small yard and with two kids of our own, it's quite "kid friendly". We've got a beautiful old park right down the street for walks and a playground.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

The best ever! We've hosted many folks at our house and have now been hosted by over two dozen families in Europe. Seeing how active the CS community is in Europe, we're looking at organizing some CS meet ups in California.

Interests

Simple living - Crafting - Making Stuff - Camping - Swimming - Nature - Reading - Traveling - Backpacking/Backcountry travel (see pictures) - Minimal TV, but excellent conversation! - We DO have internet.

Our kids love playdates with friends, knitting and felting, reading, making stuff out of junk, Legos and their current passion, Star Wars!

• working out
• shopping
• reading
• tv
• traveling
• cars
• blogging
• knitting
• backpacking
• camping
• skiing
• boxing
• swimming
• teaching

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

In 2002, carried my then two year old daughter on my back through much of Vietnam. I'll always remember her throwing up her banana on me at the Royal Forbidden City in Hue.

Teach, Learn, Share

A few other things we have a degree of experience in as well are urban chicken raising, veggie fuel powered vehicles and I've also published in MAKE Magazine an article on compressed air rockets. Angie is quite the crafter and has her own online shop on Etsy. She specializes in knitted, felted and crocheted items.
See: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/03/compressed_air_rocket.html and http://www.etsy.com/shop/angiehandmade

Countries I’ve Visited

Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Cook Islands, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Montenegro, Morocco, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States

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