2008 Extra Mile Awards

With ponderosa pines towering overhead and a pristine lake stretched out before me, a martini is the last thing I'd expect to have on my mind. But here I am, hiking in Oregon's Deschutes National Forest, craving one. Sure, the views are intoxicating enough—but I can't wait to get back to Bend, one outdoorsy town in which ordering a cocktail is as natural as hitting the trails. "Whenever I visited Bend, I kept lengthening my stay," says Jody Denton, who runs two of the town's top restaurants, Merenda and Deep. Like many recent transplants, who've helped double Bend's population in the past decade, he traded a stressful life in San Francisco for the more low-key vibe of Bend. And although his white chef's coat didn't exactly blend in with the fleece jackets typically seen around town, Denton soon learned that Bend isn't your typical place. "It's casual and friendly here, but it's not as granola as Portland," he says. "People often get so dressed up on the weekends that I sometimes think I'm in Manhattan! Bend never fails to surprise me." Indeed, a glance around Denton's dining rooms reveals patrons sipping one of the state's famous pinot noirs and sharing slices of pizza from the wood-fired oven at family-friendly Merenda. Meanwhile, across the street at Deep, young professionals in sleek leather booths order yellow-tail carpaccio and unagi sushi artfully assembled on porcelain plates. Thanks to chefs like Denton, the region actually has more restaurants per capita than Portland. That fact, coupled with the spectacular scenery—mountains and high desert to the north, east, and west—is what has brought me here for a long weekend. Over a plate of salmon hash and eggs at The Victorian Café (the one place in town where you'll have to wait for a table), I meet Delia Paine, an artist who relocated to Bend from Seattle a few years ago with her husband, Matt, and their son, Riley. "I knew we'd made the right move when I was scrambling for a credit card in a store one day and the clerk said to me, 'You can relax, you're in Bend now,'" she recalls. Today, Delia's known around town as Bend's magnet maker; she presses vintage paper stamped with the town's logo onto magnets sold at Cascade Cottons, a clothing shop that also carries Bend-made arts and crafts. After breakfast, Delia and Matt take me on a stroll through their River West neighborhood, where many of the town's "lunch-box" houses still stand. When Bend was a booming timber town in the early 20th century, loggers from the two local mills would build Craftsman-style bungalows during their lunch breaks. The Des Chutes Historical Museum offers self-guided walking tours of lunch-box houses in the Old Town Historic District. The former Brooks-Scanlon Mill is now the Old Mill District—a 49-store shopping complex. Reinvention is also a prominent theme at McMenamins Old St. Francis School, which was converted into a hotel in 2004. The place pays homage to its 72-year history with black-and-white photos of founder Father Luke Sheehan on the walls and rooms named after former students. The parish hall is now a movie theater with comfy sofas and wrought-iron chandeliers, and there's even a Turkish bath on the ground floor. In the mini lobby, guests roam in fluffy robes, making their way to the soaking pool adorned with Byzantine-style tiles. McMenamins also happens to have prime placement: It's a quick walk to Northwest Wall Street, the town's once-sleepy main drag. Today, dusty old car dealerships and hardware stores downtown have been replaced with boutiques, cafés, and bars such as Deschutes Brewery & Public House. Of the six microbreweries in town, Deschutes is the most popular, serving ales and porters made from regional hops, along with fancy bar food. I order the elk burger with smoked cheddar (the region's large herds of elk are so prolific that the local semipro baseball team is named the Bend Elks) and wash it down with a pint of Cascade Ale. After that, I'm definitely full, but I still can't resist the pull of Goody's, a candy and ice cream shop with checkered floors, antique soda fountains, and an apron-clad staff. I buy a bag of chocolates, including dipped Ruffles chips and almond clusters, and head for my date with tour guide John Flannery. Flannery is the town's unofficial ambassador (at least that's what his hat says) and the owner of Bend Cycle Cab. His job is to career about in a two-seat pedicab and regale visitors with his vast knowledge of local lore, interspersed with hilarious asides. At 14th and Galveston, he circles around Phoenix Rising, an orange-metal bird sculpture planted in the center of a roundabout. "People really disliked it at first and wanted it taken down," he says. "Now we call it 'The Flaming Chicken.'" The tour is an adventure all the way to the end, when he makes a final stop at another artwork, Cascade Landscape, which features blocks of steel scattered about a plot of wood chips. If Flannery had his way, he tells me, the work would be renamed Alien Turds. I agree to pose for a photo and follow his directions to gesticulate as if there's a UFO in the sky. Local characters like Flannery give the town its offbeat charm, but the great outdoors is the main draw. The sand-colored volcanic rock faces (one of which is 550 feet high) at Smith Rock State Park attract climbers from all over the world. In the summer, Wanderlust Tours offers canoe trips to the region's Cascade Lakes near Mount Bachelor; one tour includes a moonlit dinner on the shore. Since I'm here in October, when it's a little too cold to canoe, I sign up for Wanderlust's hike within the caldera of a dormant volcano in Newberry National Volcanic Monument. I trek across the peaks and plateaus of black, glassy obsidian, the remains of a lava flow that covered this enormous patch of earth about 1,300 years ago. When I reach Paulina Lake, my tour guide, David, is handing out strands of old-man's beard, an edible lichen that hangs loosely from the trees. It's surprisingly tasty, but I'm glad to know that there are other culinary options just around the bend. OPERATORS Bend Cycle Cab 541/408-6363, bendcyclecab.com, from $30 Wanderlust Tours 800/962-2862, wanderlusttours.com, from $42 LODGING McMenamins Old St. Francis School 700 NW Bond St., 541/382-5174, mcmenamins.com, from $114 FOOD Merenda 900 NW Wall St., 541/330-2304, pizza from $12 Deep 821 NW Wall St., 541/323-9841, sushi from $7 The Victorian Café 1404 NW Galveston Ave., 541/382-6411, salmon hash $13 Deschutes Brewery & Public House 1044 NW Bond St., 541/382-9242, elk burger $12 Goody's 957 NW Wall St., 541/389-5185 ACTIVITIES Des Chutes Historical Museum 129 NW Idaho Ave., 541/389-1813, deschuteshistory.org, $5 Smith Rock State Park 541/923-0702, smithrock.com Newberry National Volcanic Monument 541/383-5300, fs.fed.us SHOPPING Cascade Cottons 815 NW Wall St., 541/306-6071 Old Mill District SW Powerhouse Dr., 541/312-0131

MAKING A FAIR TRADE Be honest when describing your home. If you hide problems or overstate your case, guests may be disappointed because the place isn't what they expected. Rosie and Brock Fettes, Aberdeenshire, Scotland Request photos of the house's interior, as well as shots of the view, so you know what you'll see through the windows. And search for the address on Google Earth to get an idea of what the neighborhood is like. Russ Phillips, Turks and Caicos Discuss all anticipated additional expenses up front: I once had a woman in Holland spring a €300 heating bill on me three months after the swap was done. Lisa Lipkin, Hurleyville, N.Y. If you have young children, swap homes with a family that has children the same age—that way you'll be in a place you know is set up for kids, and vice versa. Bente Evans, Fontainebleau, France PREPARING FOR GUESTS Compile a booklet with everything your swappers might need: instructions on how to use your appliances, restaurant recommendations, locations of nearby stores and banks, and numbers for a taxi company and a handyman. Toody Walton, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico Tell your neighbors about your swappers so your guests receive a warm welcome instead of questions such as "Who are you?" and "What on earth are you doing here?" D. Michael Dobbin, Toronto, Ont. Have a family member or a friend who lives in the area be the local point of contact in case your guests can't reach you on your cell phone. Carl and Carol Lahser, San Antonio, Tex. Because your guests may not know what to do in town, devise an itinerary for a perfect day and leave it as a welcome gift. Dean Trevelino, Atlanta, Ga.

There's always Craigslist. Or these sites, which involve a membership fee: Digsville.com Members can rate each other's homes after a swap. $45/year Intervacus.com Specializes in listings of homes overseas. $95/year Homeexchange.com Guarantees members will find a swap partner, or they get a year for free. $100/year Homelink-usa.com Updates its database daily to ensure only current members are listed. $110/year

I live in New York. But I also have flats in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and I keep a condo in Miami, a château in Switzerland, and a pied-à-terre in every Paris arrondissement. You see, I'm a house swapper. As an avid traveler with a (very) limited budget, I've discovered that trading apartments with people I meet on the Internet—they stay in my place while I'm crashing at theirs—is an excellent way to save money on vacation. In fact, after seven successful trades, I've become addicted to swapping and have made converts of my boyfriend, Alex; my sister, Lucy; and my mom, Jean—all of whom have accompanied me on trips. Sometimes I can't imagine ever shelling out cash for a hotel again. My virgin house swap was, fittingly, in the city of love: Paris. My mom and I had long dreamed of visiting together, but our lack of funds forced us to keep postponing the trip. Finally, in 2006, I decided that enough was enough. Instead of being scared off by pricey hotels—and break-the-bank exchange rates—I went on craigslist.org to look for an apartment swap. After I clicked on the "Housing Swap" link and typed in "Paris" and "September," the ideal place popped up: a one-bedroom apartment owned by Olivier*, a 30-something software company founder who wanted to visit Manhattan with his girlfriend. His home looked decent in the photos, and the central location on the Left Bank couldn't be beat. The timing also worked out perfectly, as we both wanted to travel to each other's cities in the first week of September. I e-mailed him photos of my apartment, and after a few polite exchanges, we were all set. I put my house keys in the mail, and I received Olivier's keys a week later. I couldn't believe how easy it was—or how free. Two months later, my mom and I were on Olivier's tree-lined street, which was so beautiful it was almost clichéd: chic couples strolling arm in arm, children playing soccer, a wine bar on the corner. Olivier's fifth-floor apartment was equally charming, with huge windows overlooking a sunlit courtyard, and a cute kitchen where Olivier had left us a bottle of wine. "You can tell a bachelor lives here," my mom said with a laugh when she noticed the mattress on the floor in lieu of an actual bed. The mattress, however, was surprisingly cozy—and proved to be a perfect spot for reading maps in the morning and Voltaire at night. House swapping not only allowed us to drop into the city, but into a Parisian lifestyle, too. I often feel like an outsider when I visit new places, and I observe with an anthropologist's fascination how the locals go about their days. I'll mimic their eating habits, gestures, and pastimes until it's time to go back to my hotel. Staying in Olivier's apartment, however, enabled me and my mom to slip into his life. We bought our morning espresso from the neighborhood café he had recommended. We roasted a chicken in his kitchen one night and ate at a nearby bistro the next. We chatted with the neighbors on the stairs, fiddled with the leaky sink in the kitchen, and read Paris Vogue on the sofa. And, like Olivier, we felt Parisian—at least for a week. A born-and-bred control freak, I've always chosen my hotels after scouring magazine articles and grilling my friends for recommendations. When you book a room that way, you know what you'll get—and you pay for that reliability. House swaps, however, force you to take a leap of faith. There's usually no contract or security deposit. And you never receive a reservation confirmation. When I arranged my Paris swap, I had to trust that Olivier was telling the truth about himself and his apartment. I was a bit nervous on the flight to France, with images of serial killers, con artists, and rats flashing through my mind. But after a few glasses of wine, I got over my fears. House swappers quickly realize they need to be open-minded and have a sense of humor about the unexpected inconveniences that can pop up. And, browser beware: Some swaps do come with surprises. This past May, my sister and I traded places with Michael, the owner of a club in San Francisco, and Sabrina, his girlfriend. The second-floor apartment was gorgeous, with hardwood floors, a flat-screen television, and a large, comfortable bedroom. And I especially loved the claw-foot tub—a real treat for a Manhattanite. Michael and Sabrina had also left us free tickets to concerts and recommended we eat at Patxi's, a deep-dish-pizza restaurant they love down the block. On a sunny Saturday, we purchased fresh vegetables at the farmers market and tried out a few recipes we found while flipping through their cookbooks. We just weren't prepared for something else they had left behind in the apartment. While I was watching a movie in the living room one morning, a mouse suddenly scampered under the ottoman. I shrieked and threw a magazine beneath the chair to try to scare it out. Later that day, my sister suggested we call Michael at my apartment in New York to tell him about it, but in the end, we decided against it. We figured that our fuzzy new roommate was just part of the experience—and the disturbance was offset by all the perks, such as the six-pack of beer that Michael and Sabrina had left on the counter as a gift. On another swap, I learned I had to be better about trusting my intuition. In the afterglow of my Paris vacation, my boyfriend and I arranged to swap homes with a couple from Los Angeles for five days over Christmas. I noticed something strange about the pestering nature of the wife's e-mails from the start. "I take pride in keeping my home neat and hope you do the same," she wrote. It will be fine, I assured her. "Do you have a washing machine?" she asked. In Manhattan? Hardly. "A dishwasher?" Nope. After the fourth or fifth e-mail, I was starting to have second thoughts about the swap, but I went ahead with it anyway, figuring that everything would turn out alright. When we arrived at the couple's bungalow two months later, my concerns had abated. But then I discovered a typed list of instructions on how to keep the house spick-and-span—down to the correct way to wipe the fridge. As the week went on, I felt as if I was in The Odd Couple: I was messy Oscar Madison, and the woman who owned the apartment was fastidious Felix Unger. Every time a crumb fell, my heart skipped a beat. A friend gave us toffee for Christmas, and I promptly banned it from the house. "Look at those nuts!" I gasped, imagining them scattering on the floor. The wife seemed to be keeping a close eye on us, too. She phoned twice from New York to make sure we were taking care of her house, and twice to complain about my place—she couldn't turn the key in the lock, and the radiator was rattling too much. In the end, the stay was worth the trouble. By laughing at the situation, Alex and I were able to enjoy the California sunshine without worrying about our over-attentive host. Not to mention that her idiosyncrasies made for great breakfast conversation. Of course, apartment swaps raise logical concerns about safety and privacy. When I tell friends about my trades, the first question they inevitably ask is: "You let strangers stay in your house?" That's usually followed by: "Do you hide your computer?" Allowing people into your inner sanctum is rattling, to say the least. At first, I couldn't picture strangers sleeping in my bed or drying themselves off with my towels. But I've found that I can usually get a good sense of people through their e-mails—friendly and enthusiastic people who open up about their lives naturally put me more at ease than those who come off as guarded. Plus, once we become chummy over e-mail, I don't feel as uncomfortable about having them in my home. In fact, I begin to look forward to their stay, as if they were friends, not strangers. Alex and I don't take too many pains to safeguard our house; we don't lock up our valuables or laptop in a closet, and we don't even have renter's insurance. Yet the only thing that's ever disappeared was a small part of our coffeemaker. (If you're reading this, Olivier, where is that missing piece?!) I've also never returned to a messy house—our guests always make the bed and put the dishes away before they leave. The other concern I had about opening my home to strangers was that my life would be on display. Alex and I were in a tizzy preparing the apartment before Olivier and his girlfriend came to stay. "Do you think they'll like us?" I asked as I fluffed the duvet. "Will they think our place is too small?" "They'll think we're obsessed with World War II," Alex quipped, looking at our shelf filled with history books. "Is that odd?" I replied, suddenly panicked. "Should I hide a few?" Partly because I was curious and partly because I have a masochistic streak, I recently e-mailed the people we had swapped with to ask what they thought of our place. Olivier was the first to respond. "We were happy for your West Village neighborhood," he wrote in his broken English. "Yours was the first American place we had seen with interesting books." I gave myself a pat on the back—we are fabulously literary, c'est vrai. But I wasn't prepared for his next observation: "I wondered if you were single, as your bed was small and not very, let's say, adapted for two." A very French thing to say. And a bit rich coming from a guy who sleeps on a mattress on the floor. Next, an e-mail arrived from the Los Angeles couple. The wife started out nicely enough. "Your many books made you seem like the intellectual type," she wrote. But then she moved in for the kill. "The shower was grimy, and there were dust bunnies on the floor," she wrote. Her husband chimed in next: "And the bedroom smelled like old saddles from the shoes." Ouch! I felt as if I had been socked below the belt. It's one thing to slam a girl's shower, but it's quite another to disparage her shoes. The critique of my lifestyle notwithstanding, my house-swapping experiences have been extremely positive. I've saved thousands of dollars and gotten remarkable insight into the lives and habits of San Franciscans, Los Angelenos, and Parisians, among others. I've also learned that no matter where you go, you can always find people who share your values and mind-set—my swaps worked out well because I found a community that was as curious, trusting, and adventurous as I am. I'm currently house hunting for my next vacation, in Tokyo. So if you see me on Craigslist, hit me up for a swap. I promise to move my shoes out of the bedroom.