I first ‘couch-surfed’ in 2015 as a 21-year-old journalism scholar. And I don’t imply I crashed on a buddy's couch for an evening. I spent a month solo travelling round central Europe and staying with then-strangers.
As I turned 28 final summer time, I grappled with whether or not I used to be ‘too previous’ to do it once more. Deciding towards this, I deliberate an impromptu month-long solo journey round Sweden.
Sweden had change into a current fascination of mine for its lakes, alpine forests and cardamom buns, but I used to be conscious it wasn’t precisely low-cost.
As I wished to see the nation extensively, couch-surfing made sense. Nevertheless it wasn’t solely logistics that drew me again to this pocket-friendly type of journey. I knew my relationships with locations could be fully totally different if I stayed with locals, and I might acquire new insights from seeing how others reside.
How CouchSurfing.com works
CouchSurfing.com is a straightforward product with a easy premise. The platform, utilized by 12 million folks around the globe, connects travellers with hosts who're keen to supply a spot to sleep freed from cost.
My account with CouchSurfing.com was nonetheless energetic, and the platform was virtually frozen in time. The one distinction is that it now requires a small month-to-month price (€2.26 monthly or €13.51 per yr).
CouchSurfing is constructed on cultural trade and the reciprocity of kindness, openness and belief.
Glowing references are the cornerstone to a profitable profile.
I already had a string of references that verified I used to be a enjoyable and respectful visitor with information to share. To maintain my profile present, I up to date my pursuits so hosts may paint a well-rounded image of me.
Utilizing the filter software, I looked for individuals who additionally had optimistic character references. I sifted via profiles to seek out individuals who had been praised for each wanting to hang around with travellers and for honouring the necessity for downtime.
As a solo feminine traveller, I paid shut consideration to references that had been left by different ladies. These had been of equal significance to a verification tick, obtainable to those that provide their picture quantity, cost particulars or a type of ID.
I allowed my conversations with hosts to information my journey
Radically totally different to how I construction different components of my life, spontaneity guided the best way I travelled in Sweden. I arrived by way of the Øresund Bridge, connecting Sweden with Denmark, having spent the weekend with buddies in Copenhagen.
Though I had a tough thought of the route I wished to hint, I used to be with no concrete plan. My ‘planning’ had prolonged to deciding I might enable conversations with my hosts to information me.
My first host, who had over 60 references from his world travels, was a Swede my age. He lived in Höör, an alternate group barely north of Malmö and Lund.
Humoured by my choice to land on this sleepy locality, he welcomed me into his caravan that he shared together with his fiance. As he was there by himself and it was delicate in late August, he pitched up a tent outdoor whereas I took the mattress.
They reside semi self-sufficiently on their farm plot, with vines of tomatoes framing their caravan entrance and all method of veggies of their kitchen backyard.
Regardless of having my laptop computer in tow so I may work on the go, I saved it closed throughout my time within the caravan. As a substitute, I spent my days biking and swimming in close by lakes.
Peddling previous quiet farm land - interrupted solely by my incessant need to seize the scenes on digital camera roll - I time-travelled to a child-like state the place I felt fully free.
Although I had shared a location pin drop with my mum as a security precaution - so somebody knew the place I used to be staying - I felt like no person may discover or trouble me.
It’s simpler to safe a CouchSurfing host in rural areas
Because the CouchSurfing platform doesn’t allow the trade of cash, I replayed my host with meals. A foraged garlic salt he’d concocted meant the dahl I cooked was my finest but - so good that it made its means into my reference.
Over dinner, he informed me that Dalsland, north of Gothenburg, was the place I wanted to go. Our eyes concurrently widened as he spoke of the lakes and forests within the area. It turned my subsequent couch-surfing vacation spot after just a few nights in Gothenburg, three hours north of Höör by prepare.
I didn’t have any luck securing a bunch in Gothenburg so I defaulted to Airbnb. The focus of travellers in cities makes the chances of securing a CouchSurfing host slimmer in city areas.
In Dalsland, I arrived in one other sleepy municipality known as Mellerud. This time, I used to be staying in a cabin-in-the-woods - a ‘stuga’ in Swedish. Happily I hadn’t stuffed my thoughts with horror motion pictures, so I wasn’t fully terrified on the prospect of being alone within the woods with a stranger.
Any anxieties had been quelled by the 100 references that emphasised how this host embodied the spirit of the CouchSurfing group. True to the references, we shared our ideas on the world as we chatted into the nights.
On the times my Austrian host headed out to work, I used to be fully alone within the cabin. The closest home was 600 metres in the direction of the highway. It planted the seed for my dream of a stuga, now a non-negotiable.
Sofa-surfing jogged my memory of the kindness of strangers
Per week in rural Dalarna, just a few extra hours north, adopted Dalsland. I spent it with a mom and her two teenage kids. They had been aware of couch-surfers, who had been welcomed by my host, a long-time surfer.
I spent my days working by and swimming within the close by lake, scrolling via listings of stugas with my host, and enjoying adopted sister to the not-so-interested teenagers. My fabled dahl made one other look, although it didn’t have something on my garlic-salted masterpiece in Höör.
Earlier than they noticed me off for my 11-hour prepare trip as much as Skellefteå, I spent my Friday night time celebrating my non permanent brother’s twelfth birthday in a circus-themed restaurant.
Subsequent, watching youngsters play ice hockey was on the playing cards within the north of Sweden, the place I stayed with a lady I had met on a piece journey earlier within the yr. On my suggestion, she signed as much as CouchSurfing.com with no regrets.
I ended in Umeå with a few guys my age as I made my means down the coast, earlier than becoming a member of an expat couple in Härnösand, one more sleepy vacation spot. I hiked across the forests and cooked my dahl for the ultimate time.
Equally to Gothenburg, Stockholm didn’t yield a CouchSurfing host. Nevertheless, it provided a few quiet days to mirror on the experiences I’d had with my CouchSurfing hosts. Nearly six months on, I’m nonetheless reflecting on this window of time and dwelling on the kindness of strangers.