One of the best things in every backpacker’s life: Couchsurfing

This post might be a long one, nonetheless for a good cause: COUCHSURFING! Yes, all caps and exclamation mark. Couchsurfing started back in 2006 but it took a few years to get popular and become a verb (yep, people couchsurfed at my place).

So couchsurfing is basically what it says, you sign up for free at the Couch Surfing website and then you can start having travellers a.k.a. couchsurfers come to your place and stay for free, or you can be a couch surfer yourself and surf at someone’s couch. I remember first hearing about couch surfing on MTV in 2009 and I don’t remember exactly what was my exact thought at that time but I was probably not really sure how could one let another unknown one come to one’s place and stay for free.

It is mostly about trust and references people can leave at couches they’ve surfed before. Back in 2009 I was still living at home and knowing my parents quite well I knew deep down they would never fully accept a stranger coming to stay at our house for a couple of nights so I just signed up to couch surfing and kept the idea in the back of my head longing to one day be an active user of the website, and the opportunity arose.

Since living with roommates in Canada I feel like I can say ‘I have my own place’, so at one point I had two roommates who were fairly close to me so I explained them about the couch surfing website and if they were ok having couch surfers at our place. They were all cool about it so time to get to work.

When you sign up at couch surfing you can set your profile to accept people to host, only hang out or neither. I quickly switched my profile to ‘accepting requests’ and in a day or so received the first request. Lucas, a guy from Geneva, Switzerland was hoping to stay a few days at our place. He seemed like a very nice guy, good references in his profile and had done some travelling before so I said yes.

Lucas from Switzerland

The day came, he came to our apartment and I’ll never forget the mix of thoughts when I opened the door to my place to a stranger. Little did I know that was going to be one of the best experiences of my life. Lucas was great, my roommates and I hit if off with him quickly, I even took him around Vancouver giving him a tour of the city which he was very thankful for.

A few days after he left I knew couchsurfing was something I enjoyed so not much longer after another couchsurfer from Sweden sent me a request and of course I accepted as well. Viktor was super nice as well, always up for some socializing and I also took him around the city.

Viktor from Sweden

My last couchsurfer I’ve had ended up being the one I saw the most. Anthony from New Zealand. The best thing was he is also in love with Canada which made him couchsurf at my place more than once which was always something I was looking forward to.

I know for some people might sound scary to have a stranger walking into your home but the couchsurfing experience is just worth it. Meeting new people, hearing about their travels and so on is priceless. I can’t wait to host new couchsurfers.

I didn’t use to travel much but once I started, I just can’t stop travelling. On Can I Pack? I try to share how I make my travels work out because travelling shouldn’t be hard.