WRITTEN TRANSCRIPTION OF THE PODCAST:

Hello and welcome to my podcast My Life and Other Funny Stories. My name is Dagmar Tomášková, I am an English tutor and coach and I created this podcast for English students who want to get better in their oral comprehension. As always you can find the transcription of this episode and vocabulary list in the notes of the podcast. 

In this episode, I will share with you my two short experiences with Couchsurfing. I am not the most experienced when it comes to this way of traveling but this is just what I know. So let’s go.

First of all, Couchsurfing… Do you know what it is? It is a service that you can use while traveling when you want to meet new people and stay low-budget. To stay low-budget means that you don’t want to spend a lot of money, for example on accommodation. So, it is an application where you can find people from different places of the world and then sleep over their place or it also works visa-versa, you can share your home and hometown with people from other countries.

Why would anyone do that? It is mainly for people who want to get to know different cultures and spend time with people from other parts of the world. It is not only about the accommodation part. You are expected to spend some time together. 

I know it might sound strange for some of you but it is actually quite nice. Usually, you have to have some recommendation on the app whether you are a host or a guest so if you go to someone’s house, you know how many people were there before and how happy they were there. Anyway, I wouldn’t do it alone, I was always with someone. 

By the way, let me just go back a little to the word “host” – it is a false friend because it doesn’t mean the same as in Czech. A host is actually the person hosting other people in their home. Maybe I would translate it as “hostitel” which is quite similar as well. But if you are the one visiting, you are a guest. 

Okay, let’s move on. My first experience with couchsurfing was in London. We wanted to travel truly low-budget as it was during my university studies. I think it was about four years ago. Anyway, we found one guy through the app, it was a student in London and he lived in some type of dormitories. Dormitories are the building where students live when they study at university. We agreed to come in the evening and that he would be there, we could chat a little and then go to sleep.

The reality was a little different than our expectations. We came to the address which he gave us but he wasn’t there. And we were not even sure where exactly was the entrance into the building, it was all very confusing. We were telling to ourselves that he is just probably late and that he will come. 

But as the minutes were passing, he was still nowhere to be found. Also he wasn’t responding to any of our messages so I was getting a little nervous and also very tired. I said that we should just go and find some accommodation somewhere else but we decided to wait a little longer. I don’t even know how long we were waiting. I think it must have been more than an hour or so but finally he responded to our message that he was very very sorry and that he was coming. What a relief! 

It took him another 30 minutes or so to come but eventually he showed up. He took us to his room. It was super small. By that time, it was already like 11 pm and we thought that he would go to sleep but he told us that he wanted to go out and party with his friends and that he would sleep on the couch in the common room. A common room is usually some public space in those dormitories where you can meet your friends, sit, play games and so on. 

We were absolutely exhausted so we said goodbye to him and stayed in the room. When he left, we looked around a little bit. It was all so bizzare. He had only a matrace on the floor and his things were everywhere. The most surprising thing was that he had a table and on it there was a very expensive professional camera with maybe 15 different lenses and other gadgets for photography. It had to cost a fortune. And he just left us there with it. I wish I could trust people like that. But after that, nothing interesting happened. We just went to sleep and then we left in the morning while he was still sleeping because he had probably been partying the whole night.

So that was the first experience. Not ideal but not a disaster.

The second experience is from Iceland. We went on a trip to Akureiri which is a bigger city in the north of Iceland. As we were, again, trying to save money, we decided to hitchhike instead of driving a car or taking a bus. Hitchhiking is when you stand on the side of the road and wait for someone to stop and take you somewhere. I won’t even talk about the hitchhiking because to be honest, even though I did it a few times, it is still not my favourite way of transport. But I understand that there are some people who like it. By the way, I would never hitchhike alone. I know some girls that do it but I think it is quite dangerous for a woman to be hitchhiking alone so every time I was hitchhiking, I was with someone. And I have to say that if you want to hitchhike anywhere, Iceland is the place for it. The criminality there is non-existent and there are mainly rich tourists so it is very safe.

Well, I said I won’t talk about hitchhiking and then I started talking about hitchhiking, so typical of me. Anyway, we found a guy in Akureiri who was offering couchsurfing. He had hunderds and hundreds of recommodations on the app and also one of our co-workers slept over his place just a few days before so we knew that it was okay.

His place was very small but it was so interesting. You see, usually people, who offer couchsurfing so often like this man did, get a lot of things from the travarelers that stay over. So his place was full of small souvenirs and interesting things from other countries. It was quite small but it was adorable. We were there also with one other couchsurfer from Denmark. He was a little weird but we could have a conversation with him as well. The host came home later in the evening and we all talked, it was very nice.

He was showing us photos from his life but he was also talking about his experiences from couchsurfing. He told us that a few times someone stole something from him or that some people were just very impolite and so on. If it was me and I was offering couchsurfing and someone was impolite to me, I would never do it again. I don’t know, I just hate when you offer something nice to people, they accept it and then they are awful to you. 

The next day, he took us for a walk around Akureiri and it was so great! Because it is one thing to be walking around the city alone as a tourist and other thing walking there with someone who has lived there their whole life. He was showing us all these hidden interesting places and talking about his connections to them, it was so lovely. He was overall a very nice person and I am happy to have met him. 

In conlusion, I think couchsurfing is a nice experience and also a good way to save some money but if you like traveling comfortably and like being the masters of your time, it is not something for you. For someone like me, who is very nervous of meeting new people and likes having a clear time schedule, hitchhiking and couchsurfing were very much out of my comfort zone but I am glad I have experienced it.

Of course, I haven’t tried it many times, as you could hear, only two times when it comes to couchsurfing so I think there are people who can give you much better insight into the world of low-cost traveling but I thought I would share just these two little stories. 

Thank you so much for listening to this episode and don’t forget that you can find the transcription and vocabulary list in the notes. Please give it a five-star rating if you liked it and I will see you next time, bye-bye.