Warmshowers.org is for touring cyclists. I imagine that there are a few exceptions to this. We have a few members who are walking long walks. Some of us may have used warmshowers.org when we were arriving at a city by air or something. But it's always our duty to communicate something like this to the host.

Hosts should never forget that they can say "no" at any time.

Yes, I agree with "Retired Cyclist". People arriving by a motorized vehile is not in the spirit of WarmShowers. I had someone contact me last year with the same situation. I declined the opportunity for them to stay. But If they were riding bikes, no problem.

Did you host them? I honestly would have been so caught off guard I wouldn't have known what to do. Thanks for your post.

Rachel

Maybe advise Warm Showers of the "van family's" email, and get them removed from our list?

keep the spirit.......no bike,no WS....that simple.
No hard feelings.
There is a plenty of other web for sharing hosuse for travelers,besides if they have a van they can sleep very wel on it.At least thats what I do sometimes.

Well, the family responded to me, and it doesn't sound like they did anything wrong at all:

We are a family, and we do cycling. We cross Canada. We biked more than 1000 kilometers in east. We are now and west and the roads are in mountains. We had a van who follow the bikes since the day we went at Patrick's house. It was our first day with the van. We had cyclig for more than 70 km (with kids from 4 to 20). We packed the bicycles and drove. It was late and all the kids were tired. I'm sorry if we did somethings wrong. We will be more precise the next time.

There are always other ways of staying if you travel with a van too like couch surfing. But maybe children can be an exception to the norm?

There was a similar issue a few forums back. Remember when a long time member who hosted numerous cyclists was using “motorized assist” on an upcoming trip and asked if it was kosher to request accommodations? The general consensus was sure as they hosted in the past. I would make an exception for this type of individual. Generally I agree thought that this is a cyclist resource and would not like to have a motorized, hitch hiking or eurorail visitor showing up under false pretenses. I’d be glad to consider such guests with prior notification, especially if they are families from abroad.