Recently I hosted two couchsurfers. It has been a very rewarding experience and I think opened me to meeting new people. Couchsurfing is a tool that solves the problem of not meeting enough interesting people. In our day to day grind, it is difficult to meet new friends.
This summarizes my initial experience with hosting couchsurfing guests.
I had two guests. Satoshi and Sophie. Both of these guests I selected for their entrepreneurial drive and could be considered seasoned travellers. I’ve had a couchsurfing account since 2012 and never done it before. I feared that it would be unsafe. The reason being if as a travelling couchsurfer, not being in your native country and on a time schedule, there is little that you can do if something goes wrong. Every legal due process would take extremely long. I decided to start as a host because I have the option to turn down guests and being in my familiar territory. I thought this would make a good transition into becoming a full fledged couchsurfer. Anyways, I selected these guests based on their profile. I don’t just host anyone, but rather only people whom I see have a high chance of being friends. This reduces the safety risk and is a more efficient use of time than hosting random strangers.
Satoshi comes from Tokyo and travels a lot. Currently taking time off from work and school, he has 6 more months left of his undergraduate in business. He’s been across a large number of situations such as being homeless. I admire his courage. He’s travelled good parts of the world. He’s also tried and failed to create a a startup. This tells me he’s a safe choice to host and there’ll be many commonalities we share. I’d love to make a friend in Tokyo to visit in the future. I learned a lot about Japanese culture and can’t wait to actually go experience it one day.
Sophie comes from Shanghai and is taking this trip as a vacation. She is normally working full time in Shanghai and is a headhunter. She has a wonderful cheerful personality that I could best describe as 小燕子 in 还珠格格. Both in looks and personality. I admire her bravery even more than Satoshi because she travels as a single girl, and at her height, she’s probably 1.56m. Here I am worrying about whether if it’d safe for me to couchsurf. Silly. I found her to be very driven and goal oriented personality. She has such a lively personality that would be of a great asset to any company. There are a lot of traits to be admired.
This is just the start of the couchsurfing experience for me. I’m sure there are many adventures that await me ahead and can’t wait to spend more time meeting interesting people around the world!