Somewhere between the dehydration and the descent, a stranger reminded me what I love about travel, Couchsurfing, and the moment when a complete stranger becomes the centrepiece of a memory I’ll carry for years.
That’s the whole point, isn’t it?
Van Life Is Incredible. Van Life Is Also Very, Very Quiet.
For the past month I’ve been living out of a campervan, road-tripping around New Zealand. The scenery is unreal. The freedom is unreal. The amount of time spent alone with my own thoughts? Also unreal. I am extremely social by nature, I will chit chat with a squirrel if it’s within earshot, so this has been a challenge to say the least.
For the last 6 weeks my daily human interaction averages out to two 15-minute coffee shop stops. That’s it. That’s the list.
So I’ve leaned hard into something I already loved: talking to strangers. Some of my closest, longest friendships started with a random conversation at a bar or a café. Solo travel just turns the dial up on that instinct.
The Hike I Did Not Plan For
Here’s where it gets embarrassing, then beautiful.
I was at Mt Cook on what was supposed to be an overcast, low-key day. I set off on a casual 3km walk with just a sweatshirt and small backpack. I had already walked this route a day earlier. Then the clouds cleared. And I could see that the viewpoint 600 meters away was going to be absolutely stunning. It was one of the hikes I had wanted to do but wouldn’t be worth it in cloud cover.
What I did not register: that was 600 meters of elevation. Not distance. Elevation.
If you’re thinking right about now, “wow he’s dumb…”
I agree. And it gets worse.
The hike was really just a series of stairs that felt like they went on forever. A stairmaster would have told me I’d done enough. About an hour later I reached the first viewpoint, which was gorgeous, and realized I had no water. What I did have was half a liter of a New Zealand lemon soda called Lemon & Paeroa Zero Sugar. Delicious. Not exactly hydrating.
At the viewpoint I got chatting with two groups, one on the way up, one on the way down, and both of them raved about the views from the actual summit, only 500 meters further. No stairs this time, they said.
Reader, I kept going.
The soda was gone. My legs were done. There was a mountain hut at the top where I had convinced myself there would be water.
There was no water.
The Part That Actually Matters
On the descent, dehydrated, tired, quietly questioning my life choices (and survival ability) I started chatting with a guy who had been at the summit with me. We’d been hiking at the exact same pace for 30 minutes. He was literally in the background of my summit selfie.
We’d been leapfrogging each other the entire way down without speaking. Then, at the viewpoint where I had originally made the fateful decision to keep climbing, we both stopped to rest. He spoke first.
We talked about hikes, about our travels around New Zealand. He was Italian, living the full-time nomad life and had just been island-hopping across the Pacific. I asked about budget travel out there: Airbnbs, hostels, that kind of thing.
He said it was pretty well set up for budget exploring. Then he paused.
“Do you know Couchsurfing?”
That Look on His Face
I happened to be wearing a backpack with the Couchsurfing logo on it.
I smiled, pointed to the bag, and said: “I work for Couchsurfing.”
The look that spread across his face was absolutely priceless.
He’d been Couchsurfing for over 10 years. He’d Couchsurfed his entire way around the Pacific Islands, staying with Tongans, Fijians, Samoans, etc. He spoke about those experiences the way you talk about something you genuinely love: with softness, with care, almost protectively.
If you’d overheard us and had to guess which one of us worked for Couchsurfing, you’d have picked him. No question.
We spent the rest of the descent trading Couchsurfing stories, exchanging travel recommendations, and, on my part, narrating in vivid detail every cold drink waiting for me back at the van.
Why Couchsurfing Creates a Different Kind of Connection
What struck me most wasn’t the coincidence of it all (though that was pretty wild). It was how instantly we connected the moment Couchsurfing was on the table.
Here’s the thing about meeting a fellow Couchsurfer: you already understand each other. You haven’t shared the same hosts or the same stays. But you’ve both sat at a stranger’s dinner table and felt like family. You’ve both experienced something completely ordinary to your host (a Sunday meal, a local market run, a drive to a friend’s house) and walked away knowing it would become one of your most treasured memories of that place.
My most memorable experience from six weeks in New Zealand? A weekend I spent with a local Kiwi family. A family I found through a girl I met at a hostel in Myanmar in 2017. That’s how Couchsurfing works. It builds a web of moments and people that keep giving, years later.
When I meet a fellow Couchsurfer, I know they’ve lived closer to the real texture of a place than most travellers ever will. We’ve eaten the food that locals actually eat. We’ve had the conversations that don’t happen on tour buses or hostel common rooms. And we’ve kept doing it, for years, because it gives us something that nothing else in travel quite replicates.
That Tone. You Know The One.
There’s a specific tone people use when they ask “do you know Couchsurfing?”
It’s tender. Slightly cautious. Like they’re ready to be defensive if needed (because they’ve had to defend it before) but also quietly hoping you’re about to become someone they can share something real with.
I heard it in his voice on that mountain. I recognized it immediately because it’s the same tone I use.
That soft, careful question. That readiness for either a blank stare or a moment of genuine connection.
He got the latter. So did I.
Have a story like this? Share it in the community here. We want to hear about the moments that reminded you why you Couchsurf.