Couch Surfing

http://www.couchsurfing.com/

For all those who are interested in budget travel, I have found the holy grail! It's called couchsurfing, and although I've only done it once now, my experience from that was so amazing, that I can easily see myself being a couch surfer for life.

Couchsurfing.com is an online community (simmilar to facebook or myspace), where you keep a profile about yourself, and can communicate with other people from around the world. The catch is that it's a community of travelers (approaching 400,000 members from 223 countries), who are willing to let you stay at their houses! Also, if you think that it's a European thing, then guess again, there are 255 members (and counting) in Victoria already!

Using the site is about as safe as you want to make it. It declares right on the main page that couchsurfing isn't a dating service, and shouldn't be abused in that way. There are various levels of security checks that you can perform on the site, giving members different security ratings based on these checks (i.e. references from other members, credit card address checks, etc.), although users aren't required to perform them. When staying with someone, or when someone wants to stay with you, you can first (if you like) check their verification level, if you want some sort of proof that they have been checked out (and that they aren't raging ax murderers).

My couchsurfing experience was in Milan with a guy named spike:
http://www.couchsurfing.com/people/ipispike

and it turned out to be one of the best travel experiences of my life!

When Lydia and I arrived in Milan, we were pretty beat from our long...long train ride. We were also a little uneasy about this whole couch surfing thing, since neither of us had used it before. Spike quickly solved both of those issues when he let us into his house, sat us down, cracked a couple of beer open for us, and made us a wonderful pasta, which he just went to the store to pick up a bunch of supplies for! We then talked for hours about just about everything (from what to do in Milan, to life in general), and he showed us a little more of his more than generous supply of Italian liquor. Spike then took us into Milan, showed us around for a while, then had to get home to study for his final exam that was in a couple of days. Lydia and I spent the next couple of hours touring around the areas of Milan that Spike suggested (see our post on Milan), then returned to Spike's house for some dinner. Spike took us to his favorite pizza place in town, then to his favorite bar in town to meet up with a bunch of his friends, who turned out being really great people as well. We all stayed out until like 3:00am in the morning, chatting with these amazing people from all around the world, who no more than a few hours before were total strangers, but who seemed at that time to be dear old friends. It was such a great night!

Things like that continued for the rest of the weekend, where Spike would guide us to all the great spots, gracing us with his company every chance he got (when he wasn't studying), and all the while treating us with so much generosity and respect.

After we left Milan, Spike, Lydia and I all promised to keep in touch, and we're now actively trying to get Spike to go to Canada for some good old fashioned moose riding;)

If only for this one experience, I owe couchsurfing.com for finding Lydia and I, what I hope to be a lifelong friend, which is truly something special. When I return to Victoria, I plan to stay an active member of the Couchsurfing community, and hopefully attend some of the meeting/parties that are planned in the area.