With many students out of school for the summer and local weather stations putting out excessive heat advisories in the Phoenix area, it seems like a perfect time to escape the heat and go on an adventure.
European backpacking, visiting villages in third-world countries, even road-tripping across the state border. Traveling and seeing what is outside your own hometown is a part of the young adult experience. We live through experience.
So what about all us poor college students, with part-time jobs, lacking a few thousand dollars laying around for a little travel adventure?
One option, which has become more popular in recent years, is couch surfing. Yeah, you heard me right: You can surf TV channels and surf the Internet, so why not surf couches.
OK, so it’s not quite like that. In a few sentences, CouchSurfing.com is a social networking site, a lot like Myspace. You sign up, make a profile, add some friends and post a few cheesy pictures of yourself.
The difference between this and other networking sites? The whole purpose behind the site is to hook you up with potential open couches —worldwide.
So, for example, you want to travel through Germany, but you have no money to shell out for a hostel. You contact someone in the area you want to visit and make nice with them via messages. If the two of you hit it off, they could offer to put you up on their couch.
The genius behind the whole thing, though, is that you can be both a surfer and a surfee. You post what couches/beds you have open for people to come and stay on. And even better, everyone puts up pictures of their couches, with witty little descriptions of the space available. Of course, if someone contacts you who is a total sketchball, you don’t have to invite them to stay the night.
It’s a great idea. It makes me happy that I was born in the digital age — the whole world at your fingertips, literally. And even though this may seem like a little bit of a risk … isn’t staying in a 10-bed hostel with a bunch of strangers a risk too? I’ve seen enough crazy things and people in hostels to think couch surfing might be a good alternative or at least something to try in the future.
The key is using your gut instincts and good senses when it comes to travel of any kind.
The Web site has a feedback section for each user that reminds me a lot of eBay. Once someone has surfed you or you have surfed their couch, you each leave comments, either as host or guest, which cannot be removed by them.
So to wrap it up, if you want to get out of the city, country or even off the continent, and you want to try something new and cheap, give couch surfing a try.
From personal experience, I’ve learned the best part of traveling, wherever it is, is the characters you meet along the way.
Maybe I’ve read Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” one too many times, but taken the off-beaten path and seeing other people and cultures through a different set of eyes takes a lot of guts, but the reward is well worth it. A sense of experience, knowledge and self discovery.
And couch surfing seems like the perfect, and most affordable activity to stumble upon some interesting people, adventures and create stories for a lifetime.
