[ tourism to-be ]

This is the testimonial of a couchsurfer: 

Ever wanted to have a local travel guide everywhere in the world? Here’s something I ran into about an year ago and have fallen in love with ever since. It’s called CouchSurfing and it’s an online community of travel-loving people. Officially, “CouchSurfing is a worldwide network for making connections between travelers and the local communities they visit“. Unofficially, it’s a belief-system… a way of life… and a passion that has overcome roughly half a million people from 225 countries… and the numbers just keep on increasing by roughly 1000 per day! (I know since I now volunteer on the site, sending welcome messages to new members or as we call ourselves, CouchSurfers)

Broadly, when you sign up, you define ways in which you would be willing to help travellers to your city - offering your couch and hosting travellers at your home or showing them around, meeting them for a cup of coffee or a drink, or simply offering them suggestions on places to visit, stay, eat and/or party while they are in your city. Likewise, when you travel to a new destination (or an old one, but in a different way), you can seek the help of local CouchSurfers for the same.

Already, I have hosted more than 10 people from all over (US, Mexico, India, Slovenia, Germany, Spain…) and have met numerous other wonderful people through regular CS meetings and it has been and amazing experience. I even managed to find a couch for myself in Ahmedabad where this guy let me sleep over at his place after knowing me for less than a couple of hours. Overall, a wonderful experience…so, the next time you’re planning a trip, do give CouchSurfing a thought… definitely worth a try. And if you do, don’t forget to let me know how it went…

 Posted by shilpv on http://shilpv.wordpress.com/ , thanks !