BootsnAll Travel Network



Couchsurfing Zoe

I joined Couchsurfing.com with a million members last year while I was traveling in Asia.  Couchsurfing is a world-wide social and cultural program run mostly by volunteers to foster cultural understanding…much like Hospitality Club (which I also belong to) or Servas.

For CS you are asked to set up a personal profile with your picture and fill in the answers to questions that explain your interests, personal philosophy of life, experiences with CS, travel experiences etc. You describe your guest facilities and whatever preferences you have such as preferred age groups or male, female or either etc. You are asked to verify your identity by giving a small donation by credit card and then they send a code number to your address which you then return to your profile and fill in. This verifies that you are who you say you are and that you live where you say you live. Then you can do a search for a particular city or country you want to visit and send a message through the secure CS messaging service to request a stay…or even just a request for a coffee or drink. At this time you can give your phone number and/or email address and discuss prospective visits. In addition, there are hundreds of forum discussion groups (I am a member of some of these like “International Politics”) and you end up getting to know and make friends with people there. Often these people will meet for a social evening in whatever city and country they are in and make their “couches” available to others from other cities/countries wanting to attend.

Then after being a guest or hosting or just “surfing” with (exchanging messages) you can leave a reference and/or a request to be a “friend” which will show up on the profiles of each party.

So when I returned to my home for a few months in Salem Oregon, I made my “couch” available but ended up not hosting anyone. However, now that I am living in Oaxaca I am getting requests almost daily…mostly from young women, although I did host a young French guy who has been living in Mexico City for three years. He is setting up a web-based Spanish-language radio program and is on the look-out for interesting stories. My first CSer was a young Iranian-American woman who had grown up in Berkeley. She was lovely and we had a great time together!  A couple nights ago I couldn’t host a woman from Oakland but she came to my apartment for a mescal…bringing a hand-full of lovely roses for me.  She appreciates that I make my “couch” available, she says.  A young Zoologist and his significant other from the Oregon State University faculty came one evening for fresh-squeezed orange juice and good conversation. In April I have two women from Estonia who are ecologists coming for a few days. And there are others.

In the meantime, I am hosting Belle and her young daughter, Yoli, from Austin Texas, who lived in my other apartment house with me in 2006-7. Belle has been to and lived in Oaxaca many times and tomorrow a Oaxaquena friend of hers is coming to my apartment to teach us how to make Chili Coloradito and get me back into learning Spanish.



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