When living in a new country or new city, one of the hardest challenge is to meet new people and friends. Leaving your friends behind, you only have yourself to rely on. Although I'm a very sociable person and not afraid to meet new people, my biggest hurdle was to find WHERE to meet new people. I never liked the idea (nor have I had much luck) meeting people in a club, it's usually quite pretentious and there might be fake people.
Fortunately for me, my coworker is a really awesome dude and I get along very well with him. He introduced to me to this community called couchsurfing.org, which is a community built over couch surfers. A couch surfer is literally a person who travels and sleeps on couches of other people. At first I found the concept quite dodgy (I mean, I wouldn't want to sleep in a stranger's house that I've met online! Or host a complete stranger) but once I got to know the community and the website, it's quite safe. Working on referrals and testimonials throughout the community, you can easily tell who are the trustworthy people and who you should avoid.
For the past month or so, I've been regularly attending meet ups where heaps of couch surfers meet over a beer, sharing stories and travel experiences. Hopefully when I get back home, I can host a few couch surfers and hear their stories.
This sounds like a neat idea, although personally being a girl i'd be very weary of couch surfing... traveling alone is one of the rare things that makes me feel disadvantaged as a girl. I can't wait to hear your stories, though - how's the long distance rate like over there?
ReplyDelete@mish: (i don't know why i say @ since you're the only person that even read this thing). Actually it's quite safe, the verification process is quite thorough and you read people's comments and recommendations on their profile. I met a few hosts here and they are the nicest people ever. As long as you're being safe, there is no issue of being "taken advantage"
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