Making travel as a lifestyle: easier than you think

During the 14 months spent in Australia, I’ve always had one goal in mind: enjoy my routine there while  saving money for  a long-term trip. Well, I left that paradise by the end of May and the time of travel around this  world has finally come true. That is the reason why I decided to create this blog: to share my experiences and thoughts with whoever is interested in taking a big backpacking one day. Believe me: it is easier than you might think.

A lot of people have asked me how I am planning to travel for such a  long time  and how much money do I have in order to achieve this dream. The first thing that I have to say about these questions is that you don’t need that much money in order to make an unforgettable trip. But it all depends on the kind of travel ( ourtroubles) you are willing to go to.

Travelling for me has always been a synonym of getting really deep into the  place’s culture and lifestyle. Butterflies get to my stomach once I feel like a local, even though sometimes I don’t know anything about the language, culture or habits of this new country I’m discovering. There are several ways to feel like a local without worrying about  your bank account funds. Couchsurfing, Workaway and Worldpackers are the websites that I ‘ve used and which I strongly recommend. Here it goes why…

Couchsurfing

This is an awesome platform not only to grab a good accommodation deal, but also to earn a different life experience and make new friends. Couchsurfing is a website that operates in a lot of cities around the world and it connects locals who want to host backpackers for a couple of days at their sofas or spare rooms. In exchange the host gets a great opportunity to make a new friend who is normally   from a completely different country, culture and background. This combo always leads to a lot of fun!

I used to host people from Couchsurfing in my house when I lived in Australia. I did it for only a few months, but it gave me the opportunity to meet people from Norway, Switzerland, India, China, Japan, USA, England and many other countries. During the period that I had them, I collected many smiles, stories and good laughs at my place’s balcony. The best moments would be to get  home and see all these people interacting and trying to communicate with each other, even though sometimes they didn’t have a good English or were quite shy. In Australia everybody is from overseas, so my goal was to gather as many different flags in my house as I could. And it always worked perfectly.

Octavia (USA) and Sinéad (England) at home. Believe me, you not gonna regret doing Couchsurfing

Another good feature is that you always get in contact with someone who is in the “travel mood”, which means happy, exciting and keen to know the best spots in your city. With all my guests I took the opportunity to show them to  the best pubs, neighborhoods and parties around the city.  Some of them liked more parties, others liked it more chilled and would suggest to go to a museum or something like that, but all of them were highly positive people who made  me to feel energetic as well.

Believe me, you will not regret doing Couchsurfing. I can’t wait to have a house again and host lots of  people and make more parties!

Ok, sounds awesome…but how to trust someone that I’ve never seen in my life?

That’s everybody’s #1 question about Couchsurfing and it does make a lot of sense. Everything you need in order to confirm if the host/traveler is reliable is to double check  the person’s profile. Since Couchsurfing is also a kind of social media, you can set up a good profile with a lot of useful information such as: photos, languages spoken, places you have travelled, hobbies, nationality and the most important feature: references.

If you go to the member’s profile you are going to see reviews from people that have already interacted with him/her. So they will describe the person’s behavior, if he/she is  clean or not, noisy or shy and this kind of stuff. And the way to get good reviews is getting to know another members. Not necessarily hosts or guests, but also future friends that you are going to bump into, just to grab a beer.

This idea to grab a beer with someone that you have never seen before is one of my favorite parts of Couchsurfing: the option Hangouts. This is a pretty useful tool for those who are travelling alone or are bored in a town and want to go out. This option works only by the app, between couchsurfers that are keen to go to a party, a pub or somewhere to have some fun, but eventually don’t know anyone in town. It is also really common to gather some people and organize a trip to a “must go” spot or a beach nearby.  This option is worthy not only because of the references, but also because it is a good way to make new friends, which is basically the purpose of Couchsurfing.

One other thing that can be done to make sure you are hosting/visiting someone reliable is meeting this person before. When I was in Australia, I got requested by two Norwegian girls that wanted to stay with me for 2 days. They had no references because their profiles were created some days before. But as I didn’t have any reference either, I decided to accept them only if they agreed to have a beer with me before. We went to a pub, had a great chat for some hours and they ended up staying with me for the 2 following nights. It was the first and one of the best experiences I’ve ever had Couchsurfing. All safe and fun.

For those who want know this system  better, I suggest to have a look around the webpage to see how things work there. And any doubt that may come up, please, do not hesitate to contact me. It will be a pleasure to answer 🙂

My profile there is https://www.couchsurfing.com/people/gabriel-moreno-11.

Volunteering

There are many options if you want to  work a little bit abroad, as a volunteer or even to make some extra money while travelling.  I have only used two of these options, but I can guarantee they are an awesome way to go around and find yourself a little bit more local.

The first one I used was Workaway. The platform  idea is simple: it connects you to a host or a business owner who wants to receive a foreigner to work with. So there are plenty of opportunities like:  volunteering in a farm, taking care of children, helping at a hostel, teaching English in schools and many many more. In the website, you can also filter your search by the kind of job that you are looking for, like something related to social impact, education, hospitality, beer tasting, etc.  Give yourself 20 minutes to scroll around the website and you will fall in love with the different tasks you can find out there!.

To give one example, my experience was with a Russian family in Saint Petersburg. There were three children in the family:  Sasha, the oldest boy; Daria the middle, and Lisa,  the youngest. They lived together with their mother, Anna, who gave me a pretty simple job: take Sasha to swimming classes three times a week and bring him home right after. So I used to go to the pool with him and by the time I had to wait I would head to a football field  next to the swimming place and play football while the kid was swimming. I didn’t want  his swimming class to finish to be honest, because I was having great fun!

Daria and Lisa: the two cutest girls in Saint-Petersburg

After taking him back home I had the whole day to do whatever I wanted to. Easy and chilled like this. What became really clear to me was that the mother was not really interested in making me like a nanny. Her main goal was only to show their children that there are different people around the world, from different countries, who speak different languages, have different background and also different habits. In exchange she let me have a great time with her family, fulfilled with much kindness, smiles and good food :). I will never forget the moment that enter their house for the first time and all the children came over at once to say “Welcome” to me. They were quite shy and at the same time shocked, probably because of my skin color, but this has never been a problem between me and them, since we started to play and have fun 5 minutes later.

My second experience as a volunteer is going to be through the Brazilian website WorldPackers. I’m going help out in a Hostel in the south of Sweden, an island called Löttorp. I will write  soon here about this new experience and the one I had in Russia that I just mentioned.

More about the websites

Something I have I realized  is that what make the difference between  WorldPackers and Workaway is that the Brazilian website “protects” the volunteer a little bit more than the other one. They only accept hostels and business that have more than 7.5 stars in TripAdvisor, and they also help you if something goes wrong  with your hoster. In the worst scenario, they can even pay you some overnights at a hotel if you get into some kind of trouble. But it is important to read the terms and conditions before signing up to their platform.

Workaway doesn’t do that much, it is more like a connecting tool, but on the other hand this website has more opportunities to volunteer in Europe, while WorldPackers seems to be more present in South America and Asia so far.

Talking about the similarities, both websites have some important features in common. The most important thing if you want to work somewhere is reading the vacancy’s description. It will say how many hours they expect you to work, what is the job you are going  do and what kind of experience they are looking for. After reading it, you may message the hoster and explain why  you think you would suit in their team and how you can be useful. It is essential that you make everything clear with the hoster in those messages, so you can avoid any misunderstanding or future trouble. Tell them about your abilities, interests and let them know you are willing to learn and help.

It is also really important to read the review of the place you are heading to. Do not go to places that have a single bad review. And of course it depends on your courage to go to a new place which hasn’t gotten any review yet.

Talking about money, all these ways described above are good options to save some coins for the late night beers. In addition for not worrying about accommodation, usually these places also serve you 2 or 3 meals per day. Imaging how many beers you can afford by saving the money of 2 meals!!!

At last but not least, it is important to mention that all these 3 websites charge you an annual fee if you want to be a verified member. We are talking about US$25-45 which makes difference in your status. Of course you can be a member for free, but it works better if you register  as a verified member, specially because is not expensive and you have advantages.

If you want to do it, but you don’t have much money or are not sure enough to apply for  a vacancy, let me know your feelings and I can try to help you out. It will actually be a pleasure for me.

Websites:

https://workaway.info

http://worldpackers.com

Do not forget to read the terms and conditions.

I see you guys around!

For those who are asking about the meaning of the blog’s name: in Brazilian Portuguese it is like “Gabriel goes around”. So I hope you guys keep following me but I do really hope to see you during your  trips around this  globe! Don’t forget to follow me in Instagram and Facebook, where I will also keep posting.  And please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any doubt about the websites or my trip . I see you guys por aí!