Hey travel addicts! My husband Dan and I are happy travel addicts too! We have visited many countries. I think at the last count it was around 35. Anyway, although we rarely stay with Couchsurfing hosts, we do frequently host Couchsurfers, or meet up with them in different locations around the world. We have attended Couchsurfing meetups in Mexico, Vienna, China and elsewhere. In my blog, you can read about these meetups and about people we have hosted. I think the best way to visit a city is with a local. One meetup was with Sima in Mexico City. Here is a short excerpt of two meetings in Mexico City:
“We then messaged Sima, who said that she lived nearby in Coyoacán district and would come and meet us in a restaurant. We waited for her for a long time in the restaurant, by which time we were starving, and not sure what had happened to her (traffic) so we had a soup and finally she arrived. She poured out her long and involved life story to us and took us on a walking tour of Coyoacan, which was great, especially the food market.”
And another meeting:
“In Mexico City we saw murals by Diego Rivera, Frida’s husband, in the Palacio de Bellas Artes (with another Couchsurfer called Miguel Noguera) and also in Tlalpan, an area of the city far from the centre, which our friend Francisco took us to by car. It seems that the whole city is full of artwork. It’s quite overwhelming. But we also did some more prosaic sightseeing, or so we thought. The market of Sonora, was in fact very weird. At first it looked like any other market, but at the back there are some stalls that sell witchcraft and voodoo items, which we were not supposed to photograph, but I managed anyway (hope I am not jinxed now).”
And this post was about our Couchsurfing meetup meal in Vienna:
“In the evening we attended a meeting of Vienna Couchsurfing at a small bar, and met people from Vienna, Spain, Colombia, Finland and even Syria and Palestine. It was fun but hard to talk to everyone as there were so many people. When we left it was pouring rain so we took a taxi home, as we were not sure how to navigate the tram.
The third day was spent entirely at the amazing Imperial Palace the Hofburg, which has several different parts, and it is difficult to see everything if you don’t want to be “castled out”. Since we’re not big animal fans, we passed on the Riding school. But if you are a horse person you can do that. We saw the Silver collection and the Sissi Apartments, which show a peek into the lives of Franz Josef and his young wife Elizabeth (the Sissi of the movie fame) and it was a very interesting experience and made me want to brush up on my history. Everything was fascinating and beautifully laid out. We then returned to the Naschmarkt for supper to get a bit of Stir fry and practice our Chinese on the waiters.”
If you want to read more about wonderful meetings we have had with Couchsurfers around the world please visit my blog www.rsheffer.wordpress.com
You will learn more about us and our way of travel!
Good traveling, Couchsurfers everywhere.
This post was written by a member of the Couchsurfing community. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or opinion of Couchsurfing.
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