By Horacio Sierra
My best friend and I woke up in Amsterdam this summer to find a traditional Dutch breakfast awaiting us, a gregarious cat preening itself against our inflatable bed, and a neighbor’s abandoned box of wilting marijuana plants at the front door.
While the former two wake-up calls might have been expected at a bed and breakfast, the latter was an only-in-Amsterdam surprise we experienced having spent the night at the apartment of some Amsterdam natives we had met only 12 hours earlier.
We met Floris and Baris through Couchsurfing.org, a non-profit social networking hospitality organization that hooks up millions of like-minded travelers across the world. With a profile and a few clicks, users are immersed in the CouchSurfing ethos of making the world a more tightly-knit, peaceful and sustainable place by asking perfect strangers if they can crash on their couch. CouchSurfing offers an alternative to cookie-cutter hotel chains, pricey B&Bs and impersonal hostels.
Like Joseph and Mary looking for an inn, CouchSurfers are left-leaning pilgrims searching for hospitable natives that will share their home and lives with them for a few days.
Since 2003 more than 1 million CouchSurfers hailing from about 63,400 unique cities have collectively enjoyed in excess of 1,325,000 CouchSurfing experiences thanks to the site.
Gainesville’s progressive spirit is reflected in the more than 470 locals registered on the site while larger cities such as Fort Lauderdale and Jacksonville only have 200-some CouchSurfers. The vast majority of Gainesville’s CouchSurfers are students at UF or Santa Fe with only a dozen or so of our aging hippie population having joined the fun.
In fact, more than 70 percent of CouchSurfer users are between 18 and 30 years old.
But there are exceptions. Dave Peacock and Deeane Smith of Asheville, North Carolina, who are in their 60s, schedule their lives around hosting CouchSurfers, a few of whom have hailed from Gainesville.
“If we didn’t have CouchSurfing, we would have to get a life!” Deeane explained. “We’re retired teachers, and we love keeping up with young people, and with CouchSurfing we can keep up with all ages. It breaks generational boundaries.”
CouchSurfing is free to join, and hosts are not allowed to charge their guests. Most CouchSurfers think of hosting and surfing as equally valuable experiences. In an example of mutually beneficial collective organization, grants and member donations help keep the site running.
Given the fact that people are sharing sleeping quarters with strangers, CouchSurfing warns users about safety issues without entering a Department of Homeland Security-level of paranoia. One of CouchSurfing’s safety mechanisms include a photo and text-rich profile system that allows users to leave references for each other.
Most user groups on CouchSurfing agree that women who travel by themselves must be the most cautious when traveling as criminals will abuse any system to take advantage of others. In fact, a trial under way in the United Kingdom revolves around a man who raped a woman he met through Couchsurfing.
In a cultural climate that politicizes and commodifies xenophobic fears about the “Other,” CouchSurfers disregard national borders and explode racial, ethnic and religious stereotypes by sharing their homes with strangers. In an allegedly globalized world, CouchSurfing helps individuals relate to one another via human contact instead of impersonal global market exchanges and electronic connections.
“I was attracted to the idea of CouchSurfing because I wanted to travel to learn about people, as opposed to traveling to go sightseeing,” said Amanda Haymond, 23, Gainesville resident. “I was more interested in vagabonding than in being a tourist. I wanted to get to know different people and experience their way of life and learn about the places I was visiting from a local’s perspective. The sites were just an added bonus.”
My own experiences with CouchSurfing have also included visits to out-of-the way spots favored by locals and interesting conversation rather than must-see destinations and propoganda approved by the Chamber of Commerce.
In Hickory, NC, I stayed in an immaculate, remodeled Victorian house that was featured on Home and Garden TV. While there, I engaged in a jovial debate with my retired, hippie couple hosts about vinegar-based versus ketchup-based BBQ sauces while dining at an awesome hole-in-the-wall I never would have heard of from a hotel concierge.
At Washington University in St. Louis, I stayed with a dorm room resident master who had a 3-bedroom, 2-bath, IKEA-furnished apartment all to himself. I was invited to the opening of a John Waters art exhibit replete with St. Louis-style pizza (thin, square-shaped and smothered in Provel processed cheese).
In Amsterdam, our hosts served us pickled herring before we debated the merits and drawbacks of the European Union and were educated about Amsterdam’s many “Koffee Shops.”
Without CouchSurfing, I have to rely on an amalgamation of well-researched travel books, extensive walking and exploring, and being extroverted enough to chat it up with locals to feel like I’m truly getting everything the city has to offer. And even then I’m sure I’m missing something.
