Couchsurfing is a marvelous place for people who like traveling and making new friends.
It works like that: you can search for people where you are planning to go, check their profile, and see if they are available for a drink, dinner, show you around the city, or host you for a period of time (which means sleep on their couch most of the time). The service is free, and well made, as a system of comments and vouching makes everyone aware about who is who, and we can easily know if we’d enjoy meeting such or such other couchsurfer.
Of course, profiles are profiles, and suscribers often look more interesting on the paper. But sometimes, it’s the opposite, and people not very good at writing an appealing profile (mastering English is not simple for everyone, right?), end up being the coolest travelers among all.
Some people, as me, prefer hosting, as being a guest can be sometimes constraining: key question (will our host lend us one?), timetable question (our host works a lot ad is not home a lot), comfort question (sometimes it’s a place with 5 bedrooms free and private bathroom and sexy girls around, sometimes it’s a shithole owned by a weirdo). Others like the excitment of the discovery. Many couchsurfers are knowledgeable people with high morale, consciousness, and loads of great stories (the kind: visited 200 countries, half of them on a tricycle, the rest on a camel’s back), and it’s not rare you stay in contact, and have a great chance to be hosted by them again/in return in the future. Meetings are hold between local and passing-by couchsurfers in every place where the community is not too lazy to organize them. And of course, when you host, you can make your own cool evenings with your guests…
I am a couchsurfer myself, so don’t hesitate to contact me if you go where I live… I’ll offer you a place to catch some Zs after getting you drunk as a skunk in the local pub 😉 . Girls, don’t be afraid, I’m a gentleman!