COUCHSURFING - MY FIRST EXPERIENCE
The Couchsurfing is a tool that many independent travelers use to find free accommodation during your travels. Oops, free hosting? Yes that's right!
And how it works this? This accommodation is nothing more that local people opening the doors of their own homes and offering you a little place for you to stay, whether a room or just a sofa / bed. You register on the site and builds your profile, placing information about you, what you like, your trips etc. It is important to be descriptive for people to know you better, after all, is that depending on what will happen to interact with other participants of the site and your first impression needs to be the legal minimum.
It may sound somewhat as a crazy and dangerous idea staying at the home of a stranger. But in reality, the idea of Couchsurfing is great, since it is not only a free hosting is a huge cultural exchange, a unique experience! And it can happen the person you get to know the city too, which was to be 'just a hosting', turns into a really cool way to make friends in the places you pass.
But even so, this is really safe? Overall yes, people who are part of the Couchsurfing community, are but travelers looking to meet other cultures and who are willing to open the doors of their homes to help other travelers without charging anything for it. Awesome, right?
Of course you need to take proper care and good judgment when it comes to sending a hosting request. It is important to read very well the profile of the person, see if you have something in common or something, read the person's references will also help a lot. The Couchsurfing has a user verification option where you pay a fee to have your confirmed data, such as phone, address etc, thus avoiding fake profile accounts. It is not mandatory to have a verified account to use Couchsurfing, but ends up being a difference and one point more in terms of security.
Besides you going to stay in someone's home, you can also become a host, getting people around the world in your home. For us to have this traveling spirit connected 24 hours a day is a sensational experience, since after all, this whole exchange is like traveling without leaving home.
AND HOW WAS MY EXPERIENCE?
One of my favorite things in travel is to know local people and was a long time I wanted to do Couchsurfing, but never worked out for various reasons, or people I sent requests could not receive me at the time planned or they would be traveling too. I never got lucky and found that my desire to have this experience would never be realized.
It was then that when I was planning my trip to Denmark I thought I'd try again, and this time I was lucky, very lucky!
Li's profile a lot of nice people, the kind that you think 'I want to be friends with that person "and sent nine requests, it was a rain' can not on those dates' and when I was losing my hopes received a yes! I was very very happy, because it was one of my favorite profiles.
It was the profile of a woman of 50, a graphic designer working at home and who lived in this super lovely place surrounded by lakes and nature. Most of the staff using Couchsurfing are younger people and that got me even more than her profile, was that the description she spoke what led her to participate in the Couchsurfing, was that one of her daughters traveled all over the world this scheme and had a wonderful experience, besides having saved a lot. And since the other daughter was living out, she had a space in the house and free time, she then decided to return to help her daughter received also helping travelers who want to go to Denmark. Amazing, right?
We exchanged several messages, she and her husband were super solicitous, always answered my questions and everything. The super mega positive references made me even more excited and already ahead, they were all that people talked. Their house was not in Copenhagen, it was more or less about 30 minutes there, but since we would save a lot with hosting, it gave us the opportunity to rent a car (which was what I really tava planning to be able to meet the places I wanted), and this facilitated our getting there.
I was super excited and with that goose bumps to know them, it was my first time doing something like this and I was not sure what to expect. A day earlier, the Danes (that's what I will call this dear family) sent message telling us not to worry about bringing towels, bed linen, or anything, it was just go! And still they wanted to know the details of the flight because they wanted to get us at the airport. My mouth fell open, it was all too good to be true, there are people so good in the world? Oh my! As we had already closed the car, thank you for the super kind, but we would go to them even.
We bought a lembracinhas here in Ireland to give away to them, it was the least we could do to repay such generosity. We arrived in Denmark at night and was a little adventure to get to their home since the Lindo needed to get used to driving on the other side (story for another post), we stopped at the market to buy some tidbits for us and we towards Birkerød.
Once there we were greeted by fofurinhas the dogs and soon came the Danes wish us welcome. The first contact was all kind of shy, but I was super happy to meet them in person. They showed us the house, we settled in the room that we would stay, they made tea for us and stayed up late talking and getting to know better.
The next morning we know one of the daughters (the other not currently live there, as he had already spoken) and she was as cool as their parents. They made a Danish breakfast for us, loved the experience pålægschokolade, which are pieces of chocolate that you put on top of the bread and eat (see here). And so we began our day with this host so yummy. And again I thought it was all too good to be true.
Like most of our days there were in the week, they were busy with their routines, so we did not do any ride together. But every morning we were having breakfast together and at night we gathered in the living room for chatting over a lot. It was so cool, it felt like we were visiting friends who have known each other a very unique experience even. We learn things from their culture, they of ours, we talked about everything!
A super head Berta family, parents with a vision of really cool world kind of people we thank them for having crossed our paths. We made friends for life, they've invited us to go there more often and even for summer house they have in Sweden. And again, I admired with such kindness and grateful for this experience, which certainly made our trip to Denmark to be much more special.
I left the house with that pang of parting, again leaving me pieces of me out there with the people and places where to step. I hope too meet them, here in Ireland or there.
Couchsurfing is a very wonderful thing and certainly want to repeat it many times.
>>> Does anyone ever done? How was your experience tells me there! And if not, you would want to do something?