Couchsurfing – not the Baywatch meets DFS Sofas kind.

From the tender age of  diaper wearing all the way through  adolescence and up to young adulthood we are told to ‘never accept sweets from strangers’. Our parents had the best of intentions when they passed this nugget of advice onto us, to accept help only from people who we knew. But, really, what makes up a stranger, and what makes up a friend? Haven’t we all had instances where the best of humanity, the kindest act, has been demonstrated by someone whose shoe size/date of birth/ favourite colour we don’t know? Haven’t we all accepted sweets from strangers, and subsequently found a friend?

The worldwide travelling sensation, known as ‘Couchsurfing’ certainly shares this view. Whilst ‘Couchsurfing’ does evoke a Baywatch – meets – DFS Sofas type image, it’s purpose is less bikini clad, and more blazingly exciting.

Couchsurfing.org was set up in 1999, by the corking Casey Fenton in California, who set the mission statement for the world to be a place ‘where everyone can explore and create meaningful connections with the people and places they encounter’. For all travellers, this sentiment is like bird song. Many people recognise ‘Couchsurfing’ as free accommodation, which is true – that is one aspect of it; that you’re able to stay with people without spending any money. But what you do spend is much more valuable: time, interest, shared experiences. Couchsurfing.org explains it as having an interesting friend, everywhere in the world.

I started Couchsurfing in May 2011 when I was inspired to do it because one of my best friends had Couchsurfed across Canada for 3 months, taking only £300 with her and yet had one of the most incredible times of her life. I had just split up from a long term relationship, and wanted to travel on my own, but really taste a flavour of the countries I was visiting. I had a flight booked to Pisa, in Italy, and a return flight from Istanbul in Turkey, and one month in between. 

My first host met me from the train station in Florence, and due to my first time nerves, to distract myself, I made him a daisy chain from the flowers that I found around the tracks. In my time waiting, I saw some Tibetan monks dressed in ceremonial orange robes, and really felt as if I was in a world that was totally different, and that I was part of something that was allowing me to see places exactly as they are.

In that same trip I stayed with a girl in Pula, Croatia, who hosted me on her 21st birthday. I arrived really late, but spent a couple of hours getting to know each other, and she had told me that she really missed English breakfasts from her travels in Blighty. I got up really early the next morning to buy all the ingredients for the meal, alongside some flowers. I got back to her flat, cooked the food and woke her up. Its safe to say that we’ve kept in contact ever since.

With some of the people we still share postcards and letters with each other, with others there are plans afoot to meet again, but what unites all of my experiences is a unanimous sense of richness and genuine care.

Since that European trip, I have used Couchsurfing to get to know England. A friend of mine and I hitchhiked and Couchsurfed through Birmingham, Preston and Edinburgh in order to get to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I have had visitors at UEA, and where I cooked meals for them, introduced them to my friends, and went on a walks where we pretended that the Sainsbury Centre at night was a moon base.

Recently, as I was helping a friend with a sponsored charity walk from Norwich to Cambridge, we Couchsurfed near Thetford with an absolutely incredible guy who very kindly camped outside in a tent so we both had sleeping accommodation, and made us feel welcome as soon as we walked through the door.

There are so many ways to get involved as, essentially, its a forum that allows people to see the world through someone else’s eyes. If you did want to make a Baywatch  meets DFS image in every country in the world, it’s a perfect place to start looking for the kind of people who might help you. With Couchsurfing the world seems that much smaller, and that much friendlier. There’s no place like home.