Benchmarking information technology services has become a vital activity for colleges and universities. The COSTS Project (http://www.costsproject.org/) is an ongoing quantitative effort to benchmark the costs of providing IT services in higher education; the project helps institutions understand their IT budgets and staffing relative to peer institutions. Recently, this author spent more than nine months at peer institutions of higher learning in an effort to get a no qualitative impression of where his institution, Hamilton College, stood in relation to others in areas that were considered strategic for IT. The author's odyssey began in October, 2002, in Maine. Fifteen thousand miles and twenty-eight institutions later, now, prepared to make good on the promise to share what was learned, this article synthesizes, and distills the information that was reported by colleagues around the country.