The Game Changer: Part 1

What is Couchsurfing?

I honestly have no idea how I first stumbled upon the Couchsurfing website, but I've never had anything else change my life so profoundly.  After reading their values and the vision that they have for the world, travel and "friends you haven't met yet (Couchsurfers)," I knew: I found my people.

What a beautiful idea it is to share your "life, experiences,  journey, home, extra almonds or a majestic sunset. To believe that the spirit of generosity, when applied liberally, has the power to profoundly change the world."

And that's how it works: travelers, hosts or just curious bystanders (as I once was) create a profile with basic information, about themselves, their outlook on life, experience with CS and even information about their couch.  You are then a member a 7 million person community full of other seekers in the world. 

Travelers can search for a place to stay based on location, dates, and host information (age, roommates, number of spaces available, etc.).  They then send a couch request to a specific host, or make an open post that they are looking for a place. 

Hosts can also reach out to travelers in a last-minute host group or by responding to an open request.

A request can be anything from a meet-up for coffee and good conversation to recommendations for local must-sees, or a stay of several days where you open up your home to a traveler.

Then there are meet-ups and events.  Events held in over 100,000 cities around the world of couchsurfers who just want to get together with their family of travelers.

That's where I started to test the waters.  Any time I traveled to a place, I looked for local events.  One day, my friend and I decided to amp up our St. Patrick's Day experience.....

The Idea Behind This Blog

Living the World was not conceptualized from just one idea.

Rather, it was a culmination of days, people, language barriers, misread maps (lost ones, too) and evenings spent amongst strangers drinking too much cheap wine on the floor of my 2-room apartment.  Everyone has seen and re-posted the travel memes, rotating exotic locations they want to see through their Pinterest boards and mental bucket lists.  And most people won't ever experience those places.

Which is sad - because the world is a beautiful, vast place.  And I'd encourage you to see it.

But for me, what changed me the most, wasn't the places (or the journey, as the saying goes), but the people and the moments.  And while my travels have taken me around the world, very often those things have found me right at home.

So here is my commentary on travelers, or as I have come to know them, Seekers. 

You have to have an open mind.  You have to invite strangers into your life, rely on others to inspire you, and rely on humanity to not murder you in your sleep because you invited a homeless traveler to sleep on your couch (which, by the way is called couchsurfing, and is awesome). 

I will also talk about traveling, because sometimes the person that changes your life or inspires a wonderful moment is you.

So while the content for this blog has been accumulating in my memories for several years now, it took one truly inspiring traveler to spark the idea of writing it down.  Not everything I say is necessarily my story to tell, but I hope to inspire you by sharing the small piece of their story that I played a part in. 

I also changed the names of my fellow seekers because it's not about names to begin with.