A place to stay. (2)

Wesh les gars,

Ok, I promised a more regular update of my blog here, two posts ago. If anybody actually bothered to red them. Turned out more difficult then I had hoped. But here I go again, little update of my life outside the OBE community. Don't think bad of me, for not connecting to GW anymore, I'm safe and sound sleeping in Nim. Why the same title? Because there's another aspect then just myhomeI want to write about. Because it takes up a whole lot of time and is worth the mention because I know you guys will love the concept.... If you don't know it already.

COUCHSURFING:
The word is pretty self-explanatory. Couchsurfing is a worldwide network, of people proposing their couch as an alternative for Hostels/Hotels. How does it work? Simple, you subscribe to the site, you fill out a profile and you wait for a request from a nearby traveller. Travellers that are looking for a little more then just sight-seeing whatever it is travellers go to see when sightseeing. They are suposed to be interested in the person that is hosting them and would like to see how a local enjoys himself in a town that the travellers know nothing about. Last March the site welcomed it's 1.000.000th member and it's still growing. As with many sites that get some publicity the growthrate could probably best be described as an exponational curve upwards. Word to mouth being the best, quickest and most reliable way to do this.

I started about a year ago and I have been investing more and more time. I've recently become one of the sites official translators, on a purely voluntary basis ofcourse. So not only do i host people in our house, but I also translate the site's content into Dutch. I Enjoy the occasional couch in a foreign city and I contribute to the creation of a major event held in my home-town, Lyon.
But how does it really work, a simple but effective examplary paralel could be presented. Take hitch-hiking, everbody know how that works right? You set your goal and you stick up your thumb. You never know who is going to pick you up, a reason for many not to use this way of transportation. Now let's look from the driver's point of view. He doesn't know who he will be picking up, but he goes on his instincts. He's taking a risk, as does the hiker ofcourse. It's the driver's general trust in people that persuades him to pick up the lone person by the side of the road, sometimes there's more then one. So does a couchsurfing host. The biggest difference lies in the fact that you can't request a place to stay without a profile and the site's creators and contributors don't stop to tell new members that you'd probably be better of hosting someone who has filled out his profile properly. This permits you to get a first glance impression of ho you could possibly host. For travellers it's basically the same, you request a place to stay with someone who seems trustworthy and interesting. As you get more experience as hotstraveller you learn how to pick out those people that you can really connect with. A level of participation in the site and it's content is a pretty good indication.

Yesh, there's always an argument against a site of even the idea itself. Everybody can create a identity on the internet, an avatar in a MMORPG is the perfect example. There will always those that try to take advantage in order to gain benefit. There's plenty of people that only recently heared about the site, subscribed, hopefully to save on hostel expenses during their trip through whatever part of the world they are in. They use it, but once they're back where they came from, never bother to do some hosting themselves. A fact I have to live with as a Couchsurfer and I usually send them a kind reply either saying that the couch will not be available at the requested time or inviting them to do some hosting first, in order to gain the experience.

Hope you're all interested and excited about Couchsurfing now, I could probably have done a better job selling the project, but I think it's a fair picture I drew for you. You can always find me if ever you might need a place to stay in Lyon. A reference to OBE is a garantueed succesful request.

Maybe see you around, IRL or in-game.
Jelmer / Lyon / Done for the day