I used to rely on my hostel to meet other travelers in a new place, but now I stay alone in airbnbs so I can work during the day.
I’ve found this to be a lot more isolating so I’ve created a map where I can add my profile and explore if there are any other travelers nearby to meetup with - https://travelfriends.xyz
It’s pretty basic but would love some feedback if any of you would use it? My friends liked the idea and a few of them have added their profiles.
I’ve also asked the local hostels to post it on their boards because I thought it could also be a nice way for shyer people to meet others in their hostel.
One, two of the six people currently registered on the site live in the locations they cite - they aren't travellers at all. Seems like that would undermine the USP of the site and confuse travellers. Looking at Paul's picture, his use of the wink emoji, and the fact he's bragging about his job (inadvertently or not), make it look like he's using the site to meet women. That could be a big problem.
Second and relatedly, you need to a way to stop abuse. Up-voting and moderation will be needed in some form. But also some basic safety guidelines, i.e., always meet in groups and in public places.
I agree on using the website to pickup girls is wrong ( and probably not effective ), but not being a traveler doesn't sounds bad, when I travel somewhere having a local show me the place would be nice, maybe just having a different profile for "locals" would help.
Agreed, my best airbnb hosts have been former couch-surfers who had traveled a lot but then settled down with a few spare bedrooms to offer up to the next generation of vagabonds.
I'll share my trick for young men on here now that I'm long retired from that dance, a women's expectations increase when she thinks you are hitting on her. Turning a friendly outing into a date if the chemistry lines up is easier than starting as a date from go. Women get approached by men from about 13 onward and you have to be careful to not trip their masterful bs detectors, fastest way to do that is to not be a bullshitter in the first place but I think most young men don't have the self esteem to do that.
To be fair, the whole hookup thing hasn’t worked too badly for couchsurfing. Perhaps it’s just inevitable that people will use these sites to get laid?
People have been using social things to get laid since the beginning of humanity. Nothing wrong with that. But a site full of low quality thirsty profiles isn't going to appeal to a large group of people.
Couchsurfing went from being widely used and respected by travellers everywhere to being almost completely dead and forgotten. How did anything work out well for that site?
Have a checkmark indicating whether interested in romantic relationships.
Suggest tourists have touristy photos: the photos already on this site are endearingly adventuresome.
Indicate preferred languages.
I like the meetup interests idea.
Confession: I come from a large enough extended family that I usually already know people in the cities I visit.
I know this isn't really what you're asking but I know someone who will stay in an AirBnb and register at a hostel for a bunk too since it's pretty low added cost.
Then he shows up to the group stuff but actually crashes elsewhere.
As for the site, it feels a teeny bit like a dating site right now. Uh, I'd consider taking it a step further and let the travelers say they are "Looking for group" for a specific activity.
For example maybe someone would like to go to an amusement park but they'd like to go with up to 3 others. Then other people can request to join the activity and write a short introduction.
Love the idea for one person to propose an activity in hopes someone will join them, actually would be just fine for platonic or romantic outcomes, but doesn't have to start with that expectation. If someone I would never ask on a date wants to go play chess in the park with me that's probably still going to be a fun afternoon.
Also, I had a better-than-expected experience at the Bikini Hostel in Miami Beach. While there were decidedly fewer bikini clad women than depicted on their website, it was apparent that the patio was used as the neighborhood hangout. Table tennis, Picnic tables, and food being cooked on the grill every night, cigarettes and alcohol shared freely. It didn't matter if you were actually booked into the adjacent building. Many of the guys were construction workers from Argentina, once a guy mentioned he didn't get paid on time so he would sleep on the beach until he could afford a bed again, but there was a share of digital nomads too (god, can we get a different term?). Really walkable neighborhood too, nice spot. Wish they would fix up the kitchen tho.
The city of Miami itself was dull from the few miles I drove through it, searching for "Little Havana" or a decent waterfront. Miami Beach is much more of a vacation town, endless food and entertainment options, but it's expensive, I mean manhattan prices, really.
Puerto Rico is probably just as beatiful and your dollar will go farther, it was actually my first choice but a little harder to drive to ;)
yeah I'm leaning towards Puerto Rico. I think I'm going to like San Juan. That hostel sounds cool, but I also kinda like the idea of a resort experience, which is much cheaper in PR than in Miami/beach afaik.
Looks like a great tool for finding hiking partners if you're able to build a large enough network. I'd probably not use it because I'd feel too many things could go wrong with strangers who are not committed to me like a tour guide. I've also never gone through the stage of hiking abroad with strangers in your early 20s so, I'm thinking I'm probably far from your target audience.
When my partner and I are traveling abroad, we love signing up to AirBnB experiences as it lets us to socialize with either great guides or other tourists, and not just be on our own all the time. The fact that we pay for it and each guide has reviews, gives us a peace of mind that the trip is almost guaranteed to be a success.
@elbajo posted an interesting comment about harassers looking for hookups in couch surfing platforms. I guess this is something that could happen more often if there's no payment involved for participants (unlike AirBnB experiences which is paid). I'm curious to know if you have any ideas on how to prevent that if the system remains free?
I think it is nice and I hope it stays nice, but I would predict, that quality will drop a lot if it goes viral.
I mean, there are pictures and contacts of real women in there. That approach works bad with certain parts of the internet. But this part is usually not leaving their basement and goes travelling, so I hope it catches on with the right people and stay nice at least for a while.
One thing I liked about Couchsurfing that I think could have potential is the concept of vouches. You can only vouch for someone once you've received enough vouches. That along with with references provided a good way to quickly gauge the character and trustworthiness of a person. To gain vouches and references you had to have invested in the community. Not perfect, but often good enough. Couchsurfing also had volunteer community safety ambassadors, but I think less people seem motivated to do that kind of thing these days. I think a lot of the oldschool Couchsurfing moved to BeWelcome and Trustroots
> But this part is usually not leaving their basement
Unless you find a way to validate that one really is travelling, that's a red herring. The issue is that I can see Female X is in London and I can pose as a traveller to catfish her (or worse).
Which is annoying, because the idea is good. I guess this is why we can't have nice things.
Good luck! I always miss the travel experiences of meeting temporary friends for a hike or urban exploration. Even for staying in very loose touch on facebook afterward it's not the same thing; There's something to be said for the ephemeral-yet-genuine quality of these kinds of serendipitously shared travel experiences.
It's a nice MVP but be prepared for massive troubles if it ever gets traction. The trouble with such sites is getting a revenue stream fast enough to fund moderation before abuse kills the viable idea.
But overall, if you can get network effects going, a real gem.
Nice project. As a nomad and app developer, I've thought of creating this many times myself, and have many friends who have tried to build something similar. I think the main problem you're going to run into is network effects and getting people to use it. As it stands, I can find out where more of my friends are with Facebook's Nearby friends feature, and I can find more new people to meet up with using Couchsurfing. Until you've got a significant network, I wouldn't find it worth my time to download yet another app where I have to manually update my information. Do you have a plan or strategy to overcome this challenge?
It could be useful for the same person to register in many different places, to check if somebody is interested in visiting that part of the world together in future. Example, I'd like to cross the Simpson Desert by 4WD but unsurprisingly I can't find anybody willing to come with me (let's pretend the pandemic is over.) I don't live in Australia. Maybe a site like this one could let me find people from other parts of the world (or from Australia) willing to do the same journey. Times by other crazy ideas and maybe one of them could come true.
Love it! Like Couchsurfing back in the 2010's where you offer to meet up. It all depends on the community. I'd love to meet more HackerNews folks in person, for example.
love the idea, would love for other chat alternatives as well, telegram or signal fields would also be great. As well as mentioned possibly some iconography for the type of friendship you're looking for/ providing. As someone else mentioned, someone's cheekiness in their bio can be misinterpreted as coming on.
I'm a long time (10+yrs) Couchsurfing.org member and organizer, and tried out the alternatives (BeWelcome, etc). Here's what I've learned about organizing in these communities:
1. You need a strong community.
It is absolutely essential that your membership is responsible for building a culture and reinforcing it. They need to set the standard for your site, and have the tools to keep it going. The community will create and organize events, get to know each other, police its members, form bonds, and welcome newcomers. This isn't easy, but not that hard either. The way it worked on Couchsurfing originally was forums and regular local get-togethers. Nothing fancy, just a regular old forum. But the functionality of the forum is necessary for the members to maintain the community. Having general discussions, pinning topics, 'leaders' of a particular regional community, sorting, advanced search, sub-forum hierarchy. Though unfortunately as with any forum, you'll also have to deal with spam.
2. If your website's features are shallow, so is your membership.
Couchsurfing went downhill once their forums went away, but it plummeted into hook-up culture once they added a feature to "find someone near you right now". It just turned into 50 dudes globbing onto the only chick in the area and mini groups forming around someone who's attractive. The profiles and hosting also turned into dudes only hosting chicks and vice versa. The loss of the community destroyed the entire point of the site, which was to meet travelers. If that's what you want then just have the "connect people nearby" feature, and people will just try to meet the hottest, coolest people they can. There's a market for that, but it's not the same as "meeting other travelers". The lack of community engagement also means people won't stay on your site for long, and it's the long-term membership that makes your site a reliable tool to use.
3. Enable the travel aspect.
Focus on the places, sights, food, music, culture, of each place. One of the most popular uses of Couchsurfing was just to ask locals "What's a good place to eat?" or "In what neighborhood should I stay?"
4. Use your website to shape the culture.
Provide a guide and examples for writing profiles. Add flair for common things people like, like a bowl of ramen, pair of skis, hiking boots, chess board, guitar. Let people personalize their pages with custom CSS/HTML/images - it allows people to express their individuality, which is a part of how people choose who they want to hang with. Suggest local get-togethers (pot-lucks, grabbing beers and hanging in the city square, easy hiking trails, city day tours, etc).
5. Enable the users to add value.
Allow them to add things like local attractions, events. This is another part of the core of your website ("finding local travelers") because people want to both know what to do locally, as well as find people to do it with. Make this super convenient and people will use it, and it will connect people.
6. Take safety reports and treat them seriously.
If people meet through your site, there's the risk of abuse (trust me, it happens). If you're a man running this site, you probably do not understand how at-risk women are when meeting a stranger, and how important safety is at keeping women on the site (let's face it, people will only use your site if there is a healthy mix of gender and sexuality, just like the real world). Community policing takes a lot of this burden off of you, but you still need to take reports and seriously investigate them, and ban people who cause trouble. Harm of an individual harms the community, which harms your site. I'm sure this will be somewhat "controversial", but it's important if you want people to trust your site.
All of that is a crap-ton of work. It may not be worth it for you to sink that much time and effort into your site. Without a community and the tools to develop it, I think your site may become a hook-up site like others before. Trust and community doesn't come easy, but when it works, it's beautiful. Good luck to you, dude!
The problem is that all of these other core items have been competed away by other sites. I think CouchSurfing did well because there wasn't a reddit, tripadvisor, airbnb, ... established, yet, when CouchSurfing was founded in 2003. They had an early-mover advantage, tapping into a sizeable population of like-minded people.
Does CouchSurfing have any remaining competitive advantages?
I think the primary competitive advantage is in the confluence of features. There may be other sites dedicated to one thing or another, but by combining all those features in a way that is super convenient for a single purpose (planning where to go + what to do + people to do it with) you get enhanced value.
One example is Docker. All the features of Docker already existed in different tools. But Docker combined everything into one tool, making it easy to solve many different problems with one solution. The only "competitor" to Docker now are the other tools imitating Docker. (Has anyone even tried to use LXC or OpenVZ since Docker arrived?)
Another is Facebook. All of Facebook's individual features exist in other sites. But they combined all those different things into one platform, so people naturally went "Why would I use 10 different sites when I can just use one?" Once Couchsurfing's forums went south, people found Facebook much easier for group and event organization, so all the local Couchsurfing communities fled to Facebook regional groups (..... and made them private and locals-only, excluding all the travelers). Even with a first-mover advantage, Couchsurfing lost their user base and engagement when they chased away the community (as they were chasing investors, revenue, and irrelevant design trends).
The one feature Couchsurfing has that nobody else has is references. My profile has like 70 positive references from hosting travelers over many years, people of all ages and genders, with zero negative references. But some people have references from only one gender, and some people have negative references. This gives people a much better idea if a stranger is worth hanging out with; their profile may look bland, but a bunch of glowing reviews makes you think, they might be fun, let's give 'em a chance. This is distinct from a "friends list" with no reviews or context; they might have 1000 friends, but only 5 reviews. References also help reinforce good culture, as people know if they act like a dick they will get negative references.
> "Why would I use 10 different sites when I can just use one?"
IMHO, Docker and Facebook still did core/pure products that (i) were the category best, and (ii) anchored everything else.
It sounds like CouchSurfing lost its way circa 2013 by nuking community content. [0]
> The one feature Couchsurfing has that nobody else has is references.
Agree. That's the secret sauce to any platform. With things where they're at now with AirBNB, hostel sites, and locations that will actually underwrite awful experiences for guests/hosts, I naively assume CouchSurfing is a shadow of its former self. Allegedly, CouchSurfing started adding fees in with covid19, including paid verification.
It would be better if this was less of a "dating" site and was set up as a way for groups of people to find additional people or groups to link up with for specific activities.
The annoying part of, say, organizing a hike or boat trip and the part that an app would help the most is not necessarily finding people but reaching out and getting the various kinds of commitment from people you barely know when you want to share costs, share cars, sharing taxis, a boat trip, a guide, etc.
Meeting people is way more fun organically and and I would tend to avoid apps for that (or use tinder, i guess, but ick) but if there are 8 of us who want to share $320 for a one day boat trip and somebody you just met drops out the day before... that's where IMHO the pain and profit potential lies. An app that takes deposits, sets deadlines for commitments, finds replacement people, etc. that I could share with somebody I'd met organically that helps deal with people's inherent flakiness OR finds replacement people - I'd use the hell out of that.
And, you'd have taxi drivers, boat trip organizers, hiking guides, etc. clamoring to join too once it reached critical mass coz the economics of their services often only work if they've got groups of tourists of a certain size.
Unfortunately in its current form this basically looks like a tinder equivalent with "just looking for a travel partner" written as your description with zero chance of reaching critical mass.
Lightbulb:
an app to help travelers stuck at the airport meet each other so they can share the cost of a rental car when their flight gets cancelled.
(I've shared a cab with a fellow traveller so we could catch a train when our flight got diverted.)
I carpooled with a fellow traveler who lived in my city when our flights got cancelled at Midway and we picked up the same outbound from Indianapolis. The friendship eventually fizzled but it was a great experience during and for the few times we hung out after.
As someone who has extensively traveled both in groups and solo, this looks like a hookup app. This is not something I would have used back when I was traveling. What I'm most interested in seeing while I'm traveling is a way to organize things with people who I may not see the next day to help do things like get commitments on time/place, shared costs, etc. Right now it's a spreadsheet, apps like Venmo, and luck if you want to plan something out with someone else who's also a traveler. Folks who live a nomadic lifestyle tend to be rather mercurial, so I know it's a tall order to expect technology to address the social issue of people flaking or not following through, but that's the biggest challenge of group activities with other travelers in my experience.
As for meeting individuals, I don't see the point of trying to specifically meet other travelers unless it's for hookups, and if that's your thing you can just stay at a hostel and hookup with random people, that's essentially what hostels are for. The only way this type of app makes sense other than hookups is if it's intended for groups to meet other groups and plan shared activities.
Love the idea! I've been using Couchsurfing for many years and tried their "hangout" feature a few times. It's 95% males harassing traveling women that happen to log in but the 5% left can be great to meet and I've had great experiences. Hopefully you find a way to navigate away from that even as you get more users.
Basically, this. For some reason any kind of "meetup" site always seems to end up having this undercurrent of being a crypto dating site. I wish there were sites where people could sign up for hanging out that were 100% guaranteed platonic. It's so exhausting to have to try filter out that weird dating/sex dynamic apparently shoehorned into everything outside of work.
I think that's impossible. The crypto dating undercurrent is basically life. Even at work, depending on the age of those around you, it's still there. Of course, the older people are, they have better odds of having families so the feeling fades, but I think it never truly goes away.
Anyways, I love the initiative and would love to see it catch on, I love communities like this, but, to be honest, as much as I like looking at them from a distance and admire them, I'd probably be too busy to properly participate in them.
That people are also having sexual desires is normal and allright with me.
But when it becomes the dominant topic everywhere, it is a problem.
Solution is hard of course, with so many singles out there. But I was also single for a long time and as far as I know, I did not harass any women in that time. So it might partly also still be macho thinking, that women are there mainly for sex.
It might be even only a small minority doing it, but some aggressive machos can be enough, to destroy a whole community, or make it mostly male. So moderation will be key. "Report user" Etc.
Lately there was some confusion in a (telegram) group about Saunas I am in. Because some newcomers assumed it was actually about swinger sex and not wellness. (despite nothing indicating such)
I mean, we are not living under Taliban rule. You can go to a million sex finder sites if that is what you want. No need to encrypt your desires and bother other people who are in some group for the plainly stated topic.
I played recreational level volleyball and softball for around two decades. More than half the people I dated, I met through those channels (including my wife). I continued to play whether or not I was single and after we married.
Was I encrypting my desires and bothering other people? I don’t think so. It turns out humans will, from time to time, hook up with other humans who they meet doing random things, even if those things aren’t swiping right on an app.
Sure, people are having sexual desires and dating is allright with me, but you were still mainly playing ball there, right?
Like I just wanted mostly to relax in a new awesome wellness place, I have not been before.
But sure, saunas are intense and you see other people without masks, which increase the chance of direct contact.
So if I meet someone nice there and this person is also interested, then sure, things can go another way for us, but not in this particiular place as other people are there for sauna and not an orgy.
Most, especially young women, cannot relax very well, with sexual tensions in the room directed at them, so the sauna culture is very sensitive to keep all that out as much as possible. You are just naked among other people. And relax. You may admire the looks of other bodies, but you are really not supoosed to stare at them, or bother them in any way.
But in most public saunas it is sadly mainly horny old people keeping the women out. (which is why I am a bit mad at horny people creeping into private wellness groups looking for swinger sex)
> Was I encrypting my desires and bothering other people? I don’t think so.
I can't recommend affinity groups (especially co-ed sports) enough for ways to be social, exercise, and explore romantic matches (for cheap!) It bakes in compatibility/values traits.
But saunas...?
For saunas, one of many obvious differences (with volleyball/softball) is that I can't expect someone to engage in conversation. For sports, I need to communicate and coordinate. Parent is referring to people lustfully conflating brothel/bathhouse facilities with a family YMCA.
In Germany, sauna clubs are unapologetically marketed as brothels.
"In Germany, sauna clubs are unapologetically marketed as brothels."
I am not sure, if I understand that right, but here in east germany a sauna is about sauna. And fkk is fkk(nudism).
And sex is about sex.
And surely people are combining it, but I have not heard of a gay "sauna club". That is, I do not know any sauna club at all. I am just in a telegram group, where a privately owned wellness place announces the next days when they are open for people (limited). And general talk around sauna/wellness. Nicer atmosphere, than in the big puplic ones, when you do not own your own sauna, which I would usually prefer.
That's just world-shrinking culture shock. In some countries, only (gay) swingers go to saunas; in that context, it makes sense that they could see an ostensibly sauna-focused group as really about sex.
The gender dynamics would likely have to separate sex drive from reproduction sufficiently that libido is maladaptive and ultimately eliminated from our biology.
This seems to be nearly insurmountable if the primary objective of the site is only to meet people, particularly young single people that have no local social group or attachment.
One minor pivot that OP might consider is make the site about finding ways for travelers to integrate with the local community. Volunteering opportunities would be the primary idea that comes to mind, but if there's any mechanism to integrate with meetup that might be useful as well. Basically tie in systems that have already developed a survival mechanism to filter out creeps.
I suppose it is a completely predictable outcome: internet has been telling young men for years "stop looking for a gf, just get out there, find a hobby, meet up new people".
Besides, "finding a partner" is a much more common and pressing goal than "finding strangers who also like that niche thing I do".
I liked Cousurfing, and paid them money for the service, but then they locked me out asking for a subscription. I'd happily use another application now, especially since their application was rather buggy and servers slow.
I've found it to work great in cities that have reached a critical mass of users, e.g. in Taipei & Kuala Lumpur I often found diverse gender balanced groups meeting.
In smaller cities it was 95% dudes looking for a hookup.
I've also used Couchsurfing for many years and had great experiences! Sadly it got paywalled during the pandemic to stay alive and the usage has plummeted. I also always thought it could be have been done better.
The harassment messages will be a challenge. I've just added a step now that first messages will be reviewed and approved by a moderator, but would have to come up with something more scalable long term.
It was part of the wave of new social networks that were to (and did) change how we use software. It was actually really useful and I met many people through it that I never would have otherwise. I count many of them as friends to this day.
"meeting random people and being curious about them and become friends" is a bit of a superpower in your 20s IMO. It's something I, usually by choice of venue (sleep early, eat properly, etc), don't do any more.
It happens a bit with friends-of-your-kids when you get to that stage of life, but the factors of who they are become much more constrained to certain things like schools, neighbourhoods, programs, etc.
- The map select seems to spazz out when I pan and zoom, often panning far greater distances than I intended.
- Maybe support something like Gravatar for profile images so you don't have to upload if you don't want to.
- I am impressed that I can mostly use this with NoScript enabled! I don't just get a white screen whin I disable JS. I always give sites a +1 if they can support some sort of non-JS fallback. More sites need to do this instead of the blank page dark pattern
Is couchsurfing still good? I thought it died hard once they made it pay to use. But I still get a good amount of couch requests from younger people, so maybe it came back en vogue.
I did it in 2014-2018 and it was awesome. I heard pre-2010 was even better.
I switched to https://couchers.org/, they are just starting out but already have many members who switched from CS after they started asking for a monthly subscription.
It seems like some people on here are into the idea and would use it. That's cool, but for me personally, I'm amazed that anyone is still into this kind of thing in 2022.
Love the idea. I also think the manual approval is a key factor here. I wouldn't expect this to work without it (sadly). But with some delegation it could hopefully scale even though it has a manual element.
Social networks full of bots and trolls are 13 to the dozen, but there is a real chance to make something really useful if it's based on manual vetting.
Nice idea, nice execution but I can see it going downhill. I sympathize with the idea/intention but it feels like a dating site. On top of that there are some privacy concerns. Kudos for the clean design, speed and ease of use of the page.
Just like couch surfing, anything like this will become a dating site. Usually people who knows how to travel don't need sites like this, and they can meet interesting people where ever they go. Instead sites like this it would be better to find a seasoned traveler and learn from him/her.
I guess most people have trouble meeting locals, it's not so difficult to meet fellow travellers. For meeting locals it's good to attend local meetups. For meeting travellers, you can just go to any coworking center.
as with any app where you get to meet new people, how do I make sure I'm not meeting a serial killer? at least locally in my city I have some sort sense of which neighborhood is safe, etc. but in a completely new place ??
Not going to lie, when I travel I specifically try to stay away from other travelers and meet locals.
It's fun to hang out and party with other travelers, but you don't really learn anything about the country when you do that. The country you're traveling in gets reduced to an amusement park for you and your fellow travelers. Meeting locals and getting a feel for life in the country is IMO slightly deeper.
That being said, obviously the amusement park model of travel is a thing, hence guided tours, all-inclusives, parties catering to travelers, etc... Also this app low-key feels like a hookup site.
This sounds like a bit of a travel novel fantasy to me. Always the same obsession with meeting the “real” people of the place and making an “authentic “ connection. Fact is, most people have no interest in hanging with or babysitting a tourist for free. They have their own lives, routines, friends and hobbies to focus on. They have no need for your naïve perspective on their hometown. They have no interest in being a prop for your instagram or character in your stories. Other travelers are the perfect people to connect with. They are sharing your same moment and need to experience or consume a place. You have a shared interest in travel and specifically travel to this place. They are much more likely to be open to a new an temporary connection to spend the day with and will be open to trading the information that tourists need to navigate and experience a place.
Not sure why you're denying the grandparent poster's reality.
Your response appears to be rooted in a rational conjecture of some sort. Do you have direct experience getting to know strangers while spending time in a foreign country?
I can speak from experience - there are people, nearly everywhere I've ever traveled (swaths of Asia, Europe, and South America), who are interested in speaking with me, so long as there is a reasonable way for us to communicate. It's as easy as expressing interest in their culture/town/business/activity and being generally friendly and positive.
edit: I should add, when I say "speaking with me," it infrequently goes beyond a simple brief conversation. Dozens of these interactions have turned into longer engagements, from dinner parties at people's homes, to activities like fishing, to being shown real locals spots. I have a loose network of "friends" all over the world now and have met a handful in my own country when they have visited.
I've had the same experience. Both as a tourist and a native.
People are beyond friendly to tourists. In my younger days some Japanese tourists were so happy to meet me we took pictures.
As long as you respect no one owes you anything life is great. That said, I vastly prefer real life socialization over any app. The website being shown here is a bit counter productive. Your in a foreign country, just experience it. Don't stair at your phone all day.
> In my younger days some Japanese tourists were so happy to meet me we took pictures.
I am guessing you are white? I experienced something similar when we went to china, all the locals were mobbing white people in our group to take pictures with them. I am not white and no one bothered me :). Pictures with whites is a trophy for chinese locals?
We had some sort of "lunch with locals" where 'locals' were toasting to 'the beauty' of white women in our group. All non whites were completely ignored by the locals. I've never experienced such overt racism/sexism anywhere else, Really bizarre experience. screw the locals.
You’re being downvoted but people who are at least a little familiar with Asia they’ll know how racist it is against people of color. Racisms in Asia is not only widespread but also out in the open, sometimes even against white people; Google “dame gaijin”
I’m in Indonesia and literally 2 weeks ago someone told me Papuan women are ugly because “they’re dark like Africans.” The Jakarta man telling me this wasn’t even light skinned.
This doesn't align with what my friends have experienced. Regardless of skin tone they've been treated much better in Asia than in America.
China , even to my friends of color has been amazingly great. They tell me you will get stared at, but it's nothing compared to the open hostility faced in America on a day-to-day basis.
Certainly in Asia people may be more polite about it… or you just might not understand when they use derogatory terms in their own language.
I’m white and I still hear people occasionally insulting me in their own language, thinking I don’t understand the words they use. It upsets me and it upsets my local girlfriend too. People are a*es and racist everywhere.
That said my experience with people in Asia has been overwhelmingly positive and that’s why I live here, even with the occasional rude comment and person taking a video of me while saying “botak”
>This doesn't align with what my friends have experienced.
ok ? But you are white. yea?
What you described in your original comment is a white person experience. No asian is rushing to get their picture taken with an Indian, lol.
I later learned that having your picture taken or having a white 'friend' is some sort of status symbol.
> The phenomenon is based on the perception that association with foreigners, specifically white foreigners, can signify prestige, legitimacy, and international status.
> Regardless of skin tone they've been treated much better in Asia than in America.
This might be true but i was talking about overt racism. I've never experienced this total shameless overt racism outside china. It didn't even occur to 'locals' that totasting to white women's beauty had anything wrong with it, it just made sense to them that white = pretty.
This is a weird comment but I can't quite put a pin on why.
> ok ? But you are white. yea?
> What you described in your original comment is a white person experience. No asian is rushing to get their picture taken with an Indian, lol. I later learned that having your picture taken or having a white 'friend' is some sort of status symbol.
> > The phenomenon is based on the perception that association with foreigners, specifically white foreigners, can signify prestige, legitimacy, and international status.
> > Regardless of skin tone they've been treated much better in Asia than in America.
The second quote is not in the article. But this is:
> White monkey is a term used to refer to the phenomenon of white foreigners or immigrants in China ...
Emphasis mine. Setting aside the irony of complaining about racism and then failing to distinguish between Chinese and Japanese, I don't know why you felt the need to diminish the parent's experience in Japan.
Ok, people prefer white skin in China. They also prefer it in India. It's pretty common in countries with a colonial "heritage", though I agree it's gross.
The second part:
> > Regardless of skin tone they've been treated much better in Asia than in America.
> This might be true but i was talking about overt racism. I've never experienced this total shameless overt racism outside china. It didn't even occur to 'locals' that totasting to white women's beauty had anything wrong with it, it just made sense to them that white = pretty.
Emphasis mine.
But then the parent comment stated:
> This doesn't align with what my friends have experienced. Regardless of skin tone they've been treated much better in Asia than in America.
> China , even to my friends of color has been amazingly great. They tell me you will get stared at, but it's nothing compared to the open hostility faced in America on a day-to-day basis.
Emphasis mine. So the parent was talking about overt racism too. They're both valid, I suppose.
I guess the reason why this comment feels weird is because it really feels like there is an undercurrent of genuine hatred for the Chinese, which you are trying to justify with an experience of colorism, despite the fact that India (which I'm assuming you're from? Since you mentioned "Indian") also has problems with preferring white skin. I guess you can hate both Indians and Chinese for colorism, but it feels like you are just using colorism as an excuse to hate the Chinese.
Sorry for being so accusatory. This comment just had a weird feeling I wanted to address.
It all depends on where you go. Sure what you mentioned is a possibility if you are at some unknown south american destination vs brekenridge over Christmas break.
American mountain communities for example HATE tourists for making everything crowded and unaffordable. It doesn't matter if you are "good tourist".
There are only so many tourist destinations to accommodate rising number of tourists every year. Every single place is overrun with mobs.
Backpacking to some remote asian town is fantasy not achievable to 99% of people with kids, mortgages , pets ,aging parents ect.
Sure I do, and it’s usually based on a friend of a friend, a shared interest or from me being there a longer time. It comes through me engaging with them like a regular person, not some fetishized “local.”
I didn't read the post from person you responded to in the way that you did. I can agree that Instagram and the availability of cheaper travel has had the impact you describe. I think my initial language and description might have gravitated towards use of the word "local" but that's effectively used as shorthand. The assumption of most reasonable people is that you need to make connections with people.
This is such a cynical take. Some people travel to meet fun, interesting, and different people, while some locals are also interested in meeting fun, interesting, and different people.
Sure, you wont understand what it is really like to be a local resident from a single conversation, or spending a day together, but you can connect and learn more than you knew before.
You don't have to fetishize locals, to seek out their company and perspective over other tourists. Some of my fondest travel memories are from being invited into peoples homes for meals with their family, talking with them, and getting a tiny peak at their experience.
> and want to help you out in finding the best (non-touristic) spots.
Not attacking you but what does "non-touristic" even mean though? If you wanna not be a tourist and "live like the locals" get a job and an apartment there and stay a while. If you are only there for a week you'll always be a tourist living like a tourist--you are a transient visitor and nothing more.
In my book, to not be a tourist and "live like a local" you'll need to immerse yourself in all the mundane, routine things people in that area do like:
- Get a drivers license & register your car (if you have one)
- Get a haircut
- Go to the doctors office and the dentist
- Purchase a new pair of shoes
- Take your pet to the dentist
- Have a meaningful opinion on some local political issue (I'd say vote, but that isn't always possible without actually being a citizen)
- Go grocery shopping and purchase household sundries like toilet paper, paper towels, cleaning spray, brooms, etc.
- Get mail and packages delivered to your residence
- Speak to people in the native language. Be able to read it too.
I dunno. I've traveled more than the average person and I kinda think trying to "experience things like a local" just isn't possible or even desirable. You are a visitor. Embrace it. Only by moving there and living the mundane parts of life can you truly "live like a local".
That being said, I do understand the desire to escape the "tourist traps" and go somewhere that isn't just trinket shops and tacky shirts. I don't know if you need to know locals to find that stuff, I think you need to have an understanding of the kinds of things you like to see.
To me it means "being a better visitor" and "providing a better visit". The idea of living like a local is very extreme and not what I think the person that you replied to was really suggesting. The use of the term "non-touristic" is pretty common amongst non-native speakers, but it means a lot of different things.
I would only include a few of your bullets, begrudgingly, as things that I'd put in the "non-touristic" box. For example, someone if someone is trying to select a restaurant, then highlighting the more authentic options which resonate are something that I've had locals do on virtually every trip. Local people to me sometimes includes other business owners or tour guides I've encountered on the trip. I've normally done some research to find the the better spots, but a local person may know which one offers a particular delicacy that is prepared in a traditional way. They may even just know which one doesn't really require reservations.
As an example, I was in Kyoto in 2019 with my wife. For various reasons we got to our ryokan (guesthouse) later than expected. We were on the fence about planning a fancy Kaiseki meal later in the week for my birthday because only one of us is an adventurous eater. Our hosts asked us about our plans for the week, if we had food, etc., and suggested an amazing local place that we would never have found on our own. In a way it was intimidating given that no one spoke English, but our hosts had really greased the wheels with the husband and wife who ran the place. This is absolutely not the kind of setup and assistance that you get from a concierge in hotels where there is a degree of risk avoidance.
The mundane is only something you have time for on an extended trip. By the very nature of being long enough on a trip that your hair grows out, you'll likely need a trim. You may have the choice of somewhere that's easy and comfortable for a someone from a different place, or you may see that your comfort with the location has changed to open different possibilities. Of course, if you like to throw yourself into situations you can skip the haircut before leaving and try to find something when you arrive. Your personality impacts how comfortable you feel with that.
I was in Seoul for a conference a few years ago, and it was pretty obvious that there was a "tourist halo" around the Conrad and other big western hotels. Once you got outside that, you very quickly started to find eateries where they don't accept western credit cards, there's no English on the menu, and there might not even be a person on staff capable of speaking competent English.
But like, the small group I was with ended up at a place like this that did Korean BBQ: we showed the proprietor the cash we had, and basically they brought out a selection of delicious things, took our money, and that was that. I guess it's possible we might have been disappointed, but it ended up being a great experience, and certainly far more true to the experience of a local than eating in one of the hotel restaurants.
Non-touristic doesn't mean you have to live like a local.
Let me give you an example. When we were traveling in Cuba, we met a fellow Flemisch guy, who seemed to know a lot of locals. We started talking. He was there visiting his ex-wifes Cuban family. He and his ex-brother in law invited us for dinner at their house in Santiago de Cuba. One of the best experiences I had, and I don't consider such a thing "touristic". You're not talking to a tour guide there.
A lot of times, the locals are very happy to interact with you. And coming from a western country, it always surprised me how welcoming other, poorer countries are.
Yeah but there is a middle ground. There is the fun local bar that's hidden on a back street, not the generic bar that most visitors are going to because it's recommended by everyone.
There are the beaches that locals party at or are empty, not the overcrowded ones that tour busses shuttle people to.
You can be a tourist and still get to experience the fun parts of life the way locals do, without having to get a 9-5 in the town.
You're totally right! When I moved from the Bay Area to Saigon (first time living outside of the US), all of those things really were a fun challenge. The last one though is not so easy... Vietnamese is a painful language to learn beyond just simple things. Especially if you're tone deaf like I am.
I agree. I'll add that I've known plenty of people who have done all the things you listed, and still aren't seen as a local, and are treated as more of a prop. This isn't just true of Americans going to other countries, but of people from other countries coming to America as well.
So some background to my comment. I live in a tourist town. Tourists come for the weekend. Travelers come for 6 months to a year. There's a scene to traveling. Some people come, interact only with other travelers. Others interact with everyone.
When I travel abroad, it's for months at a time. I avoid the 'scene', not for disdain for tourists or other travelers, but because you miss some things. Not gonna say I specifically avoid ex-pats, just don't seek them out either. Some ex-pats form groups because they want a social life and are too lazy to learn the language, I'm not about that. But if I meet one, that's fine too.
I'm not traveling for Instagram clout, I just like it. My typical MO is to book a one way ticket, then spend months off the beaten path, working remote all the while. It's what I like. I meet people because I'm social (enough anyway, in many ways I'm introverted), not because I want something. And sometimes (usually) I just have a 5 minute conversation and it goes nowhere. Because people do have lives, yes. That's ok though. Same back home, if I sit at a bar and someone else strikes up a conversation, I engage or don't, depending on my mood. That's life. Truly good friends are rare anyway. And traveling 'friends' are usually just people who want a favour, in my experience. So I go places, am completely self-sufficient the whole way, I meet people, sometimes they stick around, often they don't.
Ok I get you and what I said really doesn’t apply to you. If you are going somewhere for months, you are way outside the tourist category. Someone coming for a month or a year is practically living there. And at that point you would want to associate with other people who live there, not tourists there for a weekend. Someone who has lived there all their life and is not very open to meeting new people may not been interested in engaging someone who will only be there for 6 months, but that seems like an entirety separate issue. After all, some people refuse to engage with anyone not born in their town and see even people who have been there for decades as outsiders.
Couchsurfing has been a thing for decades, so I don't know where you're coming from. Sure most people don't want to meet new people and hang out, but most people are happy sitting at home watching cable TV and eating delivery pizza every other night too. Who cares about them?
Different strokes I guess... I typically go places for 1-3 months at a time. And work as well. So, if I go to a bar in a foreign country and talk to people, it's the same as going to a bar and talking to people in my hometown. Not being a tourist that needs babysitting. Besides, you can usually knock off all the touristy "must do's" in a day or two anyway.
My experience matches yours pretty strongly. I've never really had an issue meeting individuals while traveling solo, it's more about when I'm in a group meeting other groups to temporarily add new faces to the mix. I also generally prefer to stay in some place at /least/ one month, and just live a "normal" life in a different location and meet some locals along the way.
Being there for a few months is a different animal. After a few weeks, you pretty much live there and are somewhat of a local yourself. You are no longer a tourist trying to collect an experience, just a person who happens to connect with another person. I was in Vienna recently for a month. We went to a couple of shared interest meetups with a mix of expats and Austrians. It didn’t really matter where folks were from or exactly hown long they’d been living in Vienna, we had come to connect on the common interest, not that we had a made friends with a “real Austrian”.
I don't think that's it at all, as long as it's not going to absolute extremes. Let's say you are part of a tour, then you are cooped up with people the whole time. You are going to be experiencing all of the same things that others are for the whole trip. In many ways, I think the original post is about enabling this in other ways.
Any reasonable tour is going to make a very obvious effort to make it not feel this way be allowing you the flexibility to break off and see and do different things. This enriches the experience for both you and other participants because the different experiences are discussed and others go off and try the things that you've done. It is a major driver for the whole tour economy. If it was purely utilitarian then the tour company would package every piece of the experience.
When it comes to travel more generally, many people are extremely confined by touring. They want to have a completely individualized experience that takes them further away from seeing other tourists to varying degrees. If you are a reasonably well-to-do Brit, you will be keeping a wide berth from the other Brits that are at your destination from a package holiday because of the risk of loutish behavior, or bias on that.
Many tourists will plan to visit sites when other tourists will not be present. For example, staying locally near Plitvice Lakes in Croatia, so that you can get in before the tours arrive from the coastal towns. It's not that you care about the tourists that much as individuals, it's just that you would prefer to experience the place without the intensity of people. Or, you want to photos without people because you realize you'll actually spend more time blocking space waiting for a shot. Many times I've been that tourists that gets there early to avoid the tourists, only to stay and have an even better time.
The extremes are when people think they can assimilate into a culture immediately without effort. The growth in travel and Instagram trend has seen a rise in the number of checklist travelers who just drop in. People will go as far as inviting you into their homes in many places, but you need to make a genuine connection. During Ramadan in Istanbul I've seen tourists eating all day in pretty conspicuous fashion which they are free to do. By being more conscious of the fasting going on and being out and about for iftar you are going to be seen in different light by locals and the door will open to experiences you wouldn't otherwise get.
Only if you insist on the most cynical and uncharitable reading of their comment possible. But that does seem to be the case, unfortunately!
I don't think it's controversial for someone to say: "When I travel, I'd rather have the company of people who live in the place I'm visiting, instead of other travelers". I struggle to see how the original comment conveyed much more than that.
It's a gig-economy thing where locals get paid to hang around and talk to you at popular tourist sites. For example, four older gentlemen playing dominoes at a small table in Santorini, and they let you join in on the game and converse in broken english. Or an older woman working at a pastry shop in Florence, and she invites her beautiful 19-year-old granddaughter Francesca to translate your questions. All of them: rented locals.
If you are trying to get a local that you are making friends with, to be a prop in your stories for social media… you missed the point.
You should be trying to focus on learning about the culture and the places and people, not some followers you’ll never meet and making sure to get ig photos the whole day. That’s not connecting, it usery, to grow your internet fame. No surprise you can’t find willing participants.
Are you projecting? Maybe you haven’t met locals that wanted to take you around because that is the way you are treating them? I lived abroad for over a decade and I never had problems meeting locals or making friends with them. Generally I tried to avoid the selfie taking crowd of loud American tourists and brash military guys out on leave, like the other locals did.
And since you are living abroad, do you have a habit of meeting tourists just there for a holiday, ditching your plans for the day and giving them an impromptu city tour out of an upwelling of civic pride?
You're just describing the fact that there are, well, different people.
I am a local in the town I live in. I like to meet new people. I organise meetups for locals, tourists, travellers, whatever. I help people out if I see them staring at the Tube map.
Some of my friends don't do this, they have hobbies or work or whatever that they prioritise over it. Or they're just not that interested or social in the first place.
So when you are travelling, look for me and not my friends.
There are ten million of us, we are quite varied here.
I enjoy being the stereotypical Brit and waffling on about pubs and where the best chippy is and all of that.
> This sounds like a bit of a travel novel fantasy to me.
what are you talking about? I've been a digital nomad for a few years and locals LOVE meeting travelers. I get invited to parties and events more often in foreign countries than when I'm in my hone town. They themselves want to meet new people or practice their english skills.
I wouldn't assume any of those things about grandparent though. They haven't mentioned anything about wanting to be babysat, wanting a prop for instagram, etc. And many locals are often eager to meet tourists, specially in less visited places where they don't get to meet people from other countries too often.
I think this over-states the case. There's a lot of reasons to meet up with other travellers. Unlike locals, they are free in the weekdays and often don't have any fixed plans, and want to - yep - travel. Travelling with other people is usually more fun than by yourself or just with one or two others. Also, depending on where you visit, travellers are often very internationally diverse. It can be a great opportunity to meet a highly cosmopolitan cross-section of people.
The fact you're with other people doesn't mean you can't meet and interact with the local people and culture. It's also possible to spend time with travellers one day, and locals the next day. The point is they're not mutually exclusive.
To be fair, they might have a better recommendation for food somewhere that puts more emphasis on cooking than their social media game. And be prepared to travel a long way for the novelty of foreign company sometimes.
Then again, they might also take you somewhere they haven't been to before either because they're convinced it'll impress you more than the dive bar or McDonald's they usually meet their friends at, and sometimes the cheesy backpacker bar is more fun than both. Sometimes the cheesy backpacker bar has more local people in it than the reputable local restaurant too!
This is true. Honestly I didn't put much thought into my comment. Meeting up with other travelers is a thing and can be fun. I've done it. I'm older now and usually stay somewhere for a few months at a time when I travel now.
Also, to me, traveling is different than touring/being a tourist. My permanent home now is a tourist town and there's a marked difference between tourists coming for a weekend and travelers who come for a yearlong work holiday visa. The 'traveler' scene is a thing, not my thing though. They have a good time of sorts. Living somewhere is different though.
> It's fun to hang out and party with other travelers, but you don't really learn anything about the country when you do that. The country you're traveling in gets reduced to an amusement park for you and your fellow travelers. Meeting locals and getting a feel for life in the country is IMO slightly deeper.
I actually think interacting with other travelers is one of the best ways to connect with other cultures. It's one of the few situations where people from all over the world end up in a similar situation, at a similar level, doing similar things. With locals, there's invariably going to be a large disconnect, even when you can speak the language (and in most countries, few tourists do). You're always going to be a tourist visiting their home, whereas with a fellow traveler, you're a peer.
It's not unlikely that someone would have a more productive cultural exchange hanging out with a Japanese traveler in Peru and a Peruvian traveler in Japan then trying to meet these people in their respective countries.
Not going to lie, but in the year I spent backpacking around the world I spent an awful lot of time with other travellers.
Turns out most people travelling don't live in the same city as you - and when you happen to end up in place they come from, or the places their relatives and friends live - it's them, or their friends, or their families that put you up for the night, wash your clothes, take you for dinner, show you around, etc etc.
That aside, talking to other travellers usually means you have a much better idea about places to stay (because most locals don't have a clue about where to stay in their own town/city), how to get about, and all the rest - especially if they're following the same sort of travel path that you are.
I get your point, I just think don't think you're necessarily right for the market this site seems aimed towards.
Your last point is what meeting other travelers is about. It’s fun!
But once that box has been checked in life, there are swiftly diminishing returns to gain from meeting other transient, internet-connected, first-world people like yourself. Especially when the alternative is to get exposure to new things.
If you want to do that, then travel with a purpose.
I've found that just being a tourist, I was kind of an inconvenience to everyone. But when I was there for a purpose, as when I did most of my traveling for ski racing or training, it was natural to make connections. Much less so when traveling to conventions, and least as a tourist.
It was also cool that the schedule of the purpose would take me to places I'd otherwise never go.
So, perhaps take up an activity, whether sports, academic, hobby, whatever, that often has events or meetings around the country or world, and follow that... Kind of becomes a double benefit...
Same. Once you've done the hostel -> new friends -> party thing many times... it's like the same thing.
Best thing (impossible to do if you're just traveling quick) is to learn the language to like B2 level and then go around and socialize, etc. Can really get a true vibe of the people and usually everybody is so amazed that you put solid effort in to learn their language that they introduce you to friends and invite to parties etc. Way more rewarding than doing a pub crawl with a bunch of Germans and Brits and stuff.
Why does anyone want to meet anyone? Does every girl at the bar want to meet you? Does every co-worker want to hang out after work? The answer is obviously mostly no, but sometimes yes. So you go out, talk to people, maybe it goes somewhere, maybe it doesn't.
> Locals stay the hell away from tourists hoards at most destinations
So don't act like the tourist hordes? Act like a normal person? And go somewhere that the tourist hordes don't?
I know they've instituted a paywall and haven't looked beyond it (can't travel right now due to family issues + COVID) but I always thought that there should be a place for the sites/apps that straight up charge you for their service, instead of milking you with ads or selling your data. Has the good old paid model invalidated the site so much in the eyes of its users?
Much as I hate to affirm this much cynicism, the stories I hear from people using similar apps (and couchsurfers recently) show this is probably going to be the case. Too many douchebags out there.
Maybe we're both just too cynical because my first thought was "meet up with strangers in an unfamiliar location, sounds like great fun for anyone tired of having both kidneys."
Back out a step. What about meeting locally with people who have similar travel schedules and interests? (Sounds like another site mentioned here.)
Or meeting people already en route ?
Back when airplanes had lounge space, my mom would ask the captain to page a call for anyone interested in playing bridge.
I’ve found this to be a lot more isolating so I’ve created a map where I can add my profile and explore if there are any other travelers nearby to meetup with - https://travelfriends.xyz
It’s pretty basic but would love some feedback if any of you would use it? My friends liked the idea and a few of them have added their profiles.
I’ve also asked the local hostels to post it on their boards because I thought it could also be a nice way for shyer people to meet others in their hostel.
What do you think?