Dine In, Make Friends

Air b and b (www.airbnb.com,) the successful room-finding service, is expanding its offerings to home-cooked meals, at least in its base area of San Francisco. This is a pilot project which will allow those who love to cook to invite guests in for a home-cooked meal and reap a reward. The reward, of course, must be shared with airbnb.

Airbnb has been a remarkable success story--it now operates in 192 countries and books some 10 million rooms per year. The company recently received a cash infusion of $10 billion from an investor. I have never used the service myself, nor do I know anyone who has, but it appears that a lot of people are willing to chance their luck.

Another service called Feastly (www.feastly.com) offers home-cooked meals with hosts in several U.S. cities--Washington, DC, San Francisco and New York among others. A quick search of its meals in New York revealed prices ranging from $15 to $95 per person. This could be a fun way to sample a new cuisine and perhaps make some new friends at the same time.

This individual part of the hospitality industry is expanding fast, so it pays to check in any major city whether there is a similar program available there.