As promised, an epic love poem to CouchSurfers - volume 1

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This trip marks the first time I've done an entire vacation abroad entirely by myself. On past trips I've always either taken someone with me, or planned to meet with people I knew in at least a few destination cities, or both. I've visited individual cities solo, but only for a few days or a week at a time.

I've found that meeting locals and seeing their cities and regions through their eyes has consistently led to my best experiences traveling. This is exactly what Saint Rick means when he says you must become a "temporary local" - but he's an extrovert and his "jump right in, don't worry how you look" methods just aren't what I'm ever going to do.

That meant I needed to think about what I could do. And you know what I can do, really well, a lot? The internet. Heck, I met my first spouse on the internet (hi cpk). In fact, in 1994 I did an epic monthlong cross-USA trip by myself in the middle of winter, and I made that work by arranging to stay with friends from my telnet BBS in cities all along the way. This is a lot like that, just with more languages and more currencies and more public transit and less snow, right?

It's funny, because I don't remember how I found CouchSurfing. What is it? It's basically social networking for travelers, focused on people seeking and other people offering free places to stay around the world. (If you're curious you can go read for yourself how it works, the various mechanisms in place to promote safety and security for all parties, etc.)

I signed up last spring during the planning stages of my current trip, and I already knew I wouldn't try to stay with any CouchSurfers. I'm too new, I don't have a reciprocal couch to offer at this time, I don't want to spend my whole trip worrying about whether I'm being a courteous enough guest, and I definitely don't have any margin for possible error or flakiness by hosts. But it was clear that CouchSurfing had a lot of potential for connecting with locals sans couch. There are affinity groups for regions and cities, so I promptly joined every group for every stop on my itinerary. I observed that people don't commit to coffee dates very far in advance - they don't know what their calendars will look like, and it's reasonable that strangers from abroad wouldn't trump their regular plans with family and friends. So I waited until my departure dates approached, and one by one I've been posting my imminent arrival on the groups for my upcoming cities. Who's around? Anyone want to get together?

And... wow! By now, you've already read in Looking for Lech in all the wrong places how three different CouchSurfers in Gdańsk connected me with Solidarity observances I had no idea existed. All were much more than tour guides, though - we spent a nice time talking about all kinds of things: jobs, studies, travels, sometimes politics, religion, social issues. I'm pretty up-front on my CS profile, so I think they have fair warning that I'm very dull like that. 😉

I must have made not such a terrible impression. When Aga learned that I would be visiting Minsk in a few days, she said, "I know a great couple in Minsk; they're on CouchSurfing, but they rarely log in. I'll send them a message that you are coming!" And when Emilia didn't have time to join me at the Roads to Freedom Exhibition on the day we met, she suggested that we get together again the next day, which we did (I was late then, too - sorry E).

On Monday, while people-watching with Ewa at a cafe in the old town, she got a call on her mobile phone that two other CouchSurfers were in town and wanted to meet her on the Długi Targ, just down the lane from where we were. She let me tag along and we met up with Darren, a native of Malaysia who teaches cross-cultural business protocol out of Wrocław, and Matthias, an Austrian who alternates IT freelancing with travel. We drank beers and I had an amazing stinky-cheese pizza and we tried to dodge the rain under half an awning on the cafe's patio. It's rare these days for me to meet really new people, so it was surreal and fabulous. After Ewa had to go home (and wash her hair!), it was time for me to meet Emilia again, so we strolled past the cafe to see if Darren and Matthias were still there - of course they were, so we (re-)joined them and the party continued.

I'm embarrassingly lucky that English is the common language in such gatherings!

Anyway, it's only the first few days of the trip, and I've already met five amazing CouchSurfers and had to juggle my schedule to fit them all in! I've posted on the Kaliningrad forum and am getting an outpouring of responses already. I never would have thought this would be such an enjoyable way to travel, but so far, really, really good...

See all my CouchSurfing pictures on Flickr: CouchSurfing Set

A wonderful Featured Blog about CouchSurfing, by a couple I met through CS in Vilnius: Free accommodation anyone!? Give Couchsurfing a go

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Photos

Very beautiful Gdańsk
I took some time to see sights solo, earlier in the day.

CouchSurfer meetup
Three continents represented...