You bet! And it’s a great way to meet international travelers!

I’m proud to share my most recent CouchSurfing experience. I hosted Wei Chan from China for a few days last week. CouchSurfing is a non-profit organization that “seeks to internationally network people and places, create educational exchanges, raise collective consciousness, spread tolerance, and facilitate cultural understanding.” Wei has been my third visitor I’ve hosted. I highly recommend the opportunity to host a “surfer” or crash!

Think of CouchSurfing as one small step to making the world a better place. Sounds nice?

Or think of it as an international pen pal opportunity, but only in person for a few days. Wei brought along his Canon 7D and 35mm f/1.4 lens and we created this 5-minute video our Top 5 favorite things shared:

How does Couch Surfing work?

1. $25 verifies you as member of CouchSurfing.com. You create a profile including photos, kinda like your Facebook page.
2. Let’s say you decide to spend two weeks traveling around Greece and Europe. After you get your plane ticket, you log on to CouchSurfing.com and search for cities of interest.
3. You email your prospective host and wait to hear back. Wei emailed 10 people in Denver, heard back from six and “chose” me. It’s a two-way street… I get to see what he’s all about. He had great referrals, I saw he wasn’t a bum, and he’s a Chinese photographer with many stories to tell. Perfect!
4. We texted briefly about logistics, spoke for a few minutes, then I picked him up a the train station and the fun began! He had just been on a train for 16 hours, so I knew the perfect pizza place to take him. After that, introduced him to my place and showed him his room.

What it’s like from a traveler’s perspective?
Wei left his space cleaner than he found it. We hugged good-bye with hopes of seeing each other on another continent someday, perhaps in Sweden next year. After hiz\s stay, we both wrote about each other’s experiences on respective CouchSurfing profiles where others can read and judge if they’d like to cross paths.

How do you know it is safe?
You don’t actually know, to be honest. This is where trusting your gut, counts! However, if you’ve ever bought something on E-Bay, you know the importance of seller ratings. It’s kinda the same thing for Couch Surfing. You can read all about where that person has traveled, view their photos, and most importantly, read the words of others.

Is Adventures in CouchSurfing right for you?
Time magazine profiles this one sojourner’s truth.

What do I look for in a prospective host?
Couples are nice since they have generally twice the stories to tell (from two perspectives). And guys are generally more like a college-roomie where we can talk guy stuff… sorry, ladies!

Are all experiences gonna be the same?
Nope. Variety is the spice of life. My second time hosting, the couple dropped in during around 9pm and left the next morning at 9am. Others might choose to stay a week. It is all up to the host and traveller, really.

I shared something near and dear to me: snowboarding! Wei had never been up in snowy mountains before and this was his first time on the slopes! I lent him some of my old gear and it fit him perfectly! Wei had a great attitude learning to snowboard up at Winter Park ski resort (I like to think he had a good instructor). Here we are on Colorado’s Continental Divide at Berthoud Pass, elevation 12,000 feet:

Here’s the official Before and After (individual results may vary):

All you lighting geeks, here’s to you: