The Couchsurfing experience
Written by Romain on Thursday, 26 of June 2008 at 23:40
Today, I’m going to introduce a very trendy activity called “CouchSurfing”. What is it exactly ?
This expression recently appeared thanks to the openning of a new service nammed as the CouchSurfing project. Created in 2004, it a non-profit association, which aims at helping travelers from all around the world to meet each others. More precisely, it gives the globetrotter an opportunity to offer a couch (or a bed,…something that allow you to sleep !) for one or several days to another people travelling around. The association’s motto ? “The world is smaller than yoy think“. Then you probably better understand the spirit…
The “Couchsurfing” term could be translated to “moving from a couch to another”, while “surfing” also refers to the use of the internet. More than a simple hospitality service, it’s a real opportunity to meet people from all around the world.
Of course, in order to avoid any problems with bad people (unfortunately, they are everywhere), you can evaluate members that you hosted or that you’ve been hosted by. You then look more credible for the entire community.And what a community : in April 2008, it had more than 500 000 members in 226 countries and territories. I subscribed to these services for few months (at least for the one called Hospitality Club, an equivalent hospitality exchange network), i already met by chance (and while surfing the website, you’ll notice that it’s very easy to meet new people according the place where you’re going) a very friendly Russian girl, Daria, who’s living in St. Petersburg. What an opportunity for me in the preparation of my russian trip ! In the coming 15 days, i’ll also be ready to welcome two Argentine girls who will stay few days in Paris and that contacted me through the website.
Finally, I’ve also noticed that a huge majority of the people that are using this services are young travellers (less than 30 years old for most of them). And this is really confirming my idea about travelling now, instead of waiting !
- My CouchSurfing profile
- My Hospitality Club profile (You must be logged in to see it)
For more information, feel free to visit the Wikipedia page about CouchSurfing
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Classified into: Travel preparations, Watch
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