May 25th, Wednesday
Jumping into a stranger’s ramshackle RV doesn’t sound like the wisest idea in the world, but as usual, there are exceptions. When Amanda H. pulled up her 34-foot vehicle, the Noble Beast, into the Greyhound station where I was trying to ignore the homeless man catcalling at me, I hopped right in without hesitation. 29, curly-haired, and laid-back with a sweet girl-next-door smile, Amanda welcomed me into her RV. I plopped down my backpack (nearly bursting with snacks, thanks to Dennis and Sheila!), met Jack, her golden-eyed pit bull, then settled down in the passenger seat as Amanda cranked the crackly stereo system, and with a tremendous vroom of the engine, we were off on the road to the Grand Canyon.
Add Amanda to the growing list of awesome people that I’ve met on couchsurfing.com. I had posted a request for a travel buddy or rideshare partner to the Canyon, and she wrote me back right away. I checked out her profile, scanned her references, found them all positive, and wrote her back. She’s a woman who got sick of her job as a real estate agent, sold almost everything she had, bought an RV, took to the road, and never looked back. Our schedules lined up perfectly, and I found myself on the path to a national park I was beginning to doubt I’d see on this trip.
Even without my $10 a day budget, I never could have afforded staying at the Grand Canyon, since I don’t have any camping gear, but I knew I wanted to go. Now, thanks to couchsurfing, I not only had a comfy place to sleep, but someone to hike and talk with while experiencing one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World.
The first night, we parked in a Koa Kampground about an hour outside the Canyon. Munching on trail mix sandwiches (trail mix sandwiched between whole wheat bread and peanut butter, soon to be a staple of my diet), we had a long conversation about life, religion, spirituality, healing, worldview, marijuana, and government involvement. As we talked, I tried to imagine how staying in a hotel could possibly beat the experience I was having right now. It couldn’t. As the Bible says, “Better is an RV couch with love than a hotel room by yourself.” …At least, I think that’s in Proverbs somewhere.
My couchsurfing has caused a stir among different people in my life, prompting worries from all over the place. That’s understandable— when I first heard about couchsurfing, I was horrified. “Staying in a stranger’s house?” I asked the woman who had told me about it. “Isn’t that really dangerous?” She tried to explain to me that there were ways to be safe, but I was skeptical until I checked out the site for myself and understood the system of profiles and references. Thus far, I only couchrequest from people who have all positive references from a variety of sources.
Of course, there’s always a risk. Could Amanda have faked her 13 positive reviews? Conceivably, but that would have taken a mind-blowing amount of work (creating 13 fake profiles that managed to get several references each). Could she have acted kindly to 13 people in order to build up enough good references that she could sucker me into her RV and then murder me? Well, yes… I guess that’s possible. It seems much less likely, though, than most things in life. Driving a car is a risk worlds more dangerous than careful couchsurfing, and yet people do it every day. Nothing risked, nothing gained… but I still don’t view couchsurfing as much of a risk, and the gain has been tremendous.
People fearful of other people have a reason to be so, but if you fear everyone, you shut out everyone as well. If it weren’t for couchsurfing, I wouldn’t be going to see a wonder of the world for virtually no money. That Wednesday night, I curled up on the RV couch and fell asleep knowing that tomorrow, I’d be looking out at the Grand Canyon.
~Lisa Shafter
Money spent on 5/25: $1 (postcards)
Deficit: $13.32
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