It's always fun to stay over at a friends house. You get to raid their fridge, use their cool stuff and get a free roof over your head. Wouldn't it be interesting to travel like this over a long period of time? Imagine, traveling the world and only staying at peoples houses and not paying a cent for hotel costs. Talk about the best way to be frugal. With a rough economy and the ripples of its effects hitting all corners of the world, is travel more of a luxury rather than a choice?
Ramon Stoppelenbur proves that one can travel without money. His blog,
Let Me Stay For A Day recalls his 2 year journey; asking people if he could have free accommodations at their home, and would write about it on his blog. He packed a backpack with a cellular phone, clothes, a laptop and a digital camera and set off to find people who would “Let him stay for a day.” Practically all of the items were from sponsors and internet donations. He gives new meaning to the idea of “Asking people for help”, which is how he came up with this idea. He was a journalism student in The Netherlands who dropped out to complete this journey.
“From May 2001 to July 2003 I traveled the world WITHOUT ANY MONEY, visiting people who invited me over through this website. I crossed distance with my thumb or with help of sponsors and supporters. In return for all support I wrote about this all in my daily reports on this website.”
What makes his story special? He gives new meaning to budget travel and his blog is an excellent example of understanding that sometimes there are nice people out there in the world.
Would you be bold enough to travel the world with no money?
Comments (9)
I really want to go CouchSurfing. But I can't take time off work. :[
I could understand how I can stay at someone's place, but to eat their food... you don't mess with someone's food.
That's pretty neat. They had an article in our local paper about CouchSurfing this weekend. Sounds like a great way to travel!
I've always wanted to do that.
Is there a woman who has been able to do the same? Because it seems to me that it's more dangerous for women to try that. I want to go backpacking through Europe, but I don't think it'd be smart for me to do it alone.
Id be a little leery about staying at someone's house I didnt know. If I could carry a weapon along for protection, I might consider it. lol
@averyswife@xanga - yeah some really well-traveled and cool people visit that site. I have an account on there but I don't use it much. One time I chatted with this engineer dude who was stationed in Antartica for a research project.
@C0ll33Ncorps@xanga Couch Surfing is AWESOME! My s/o is backpacking and doing so right now. Its very legit and a popular way to travel! I'm so glad you know about it!
I just CouchSurfed across the US and spent some time with Casey Fenton, founder of CouchSurfing. I hung at the BaseCamp and we had a beer for breakfast. It's a vary cool organisation :)