Hi,
I am a typical
Midwestern 32 year old guy who basically packed up my entire life last year
living in Cincinnati, Ohio and escaped to join the rebellion to San Diego, CA
but I couchsurfed an entire month on the way, 6 total now. I host and have been
hosted many times, as well as AIRBNB. I'm from Milwaukee, WI and lived
in Madison where I went to school for 7 years, my favorite city still. I
ended up in Ohio for 5 years and worked a typical boring "Office
Space" engineering job for many years. After becoming jaded with the
corporate system over the years, I ended up leaving a 7 month position, very
unhappy and unhappy with with life overall in the Midwest. I found
that my open mindedness and health conscious decisions made it hard
to make friends in Ohio, except international people because they
have just as hard or harder time befriending Midwesterners.
They were very welcoming because they had no friends and had more
open minded views. I grew up an overweight kid in poverty in Wisconsin and I
had lost 70 pounds back in Madison and now had just quit the highest paying job
of my life. I never told anyone and a week later after being jaded
looking at new jobs that all sounded equally "Office Space", I was
invited out for a "beer that changed my life". My international
friends and I joke about it now. I didn't want to go out on that Friday
night, but I had 4 friends out that said just come out for one. I joined
them at a bar that had the biggest craft selection in town and as I enter I
have an Italian couple on my right side, and to my left a German friend and his
Indian girlfriend. I had hung out with these guys a lot, but this time
was different. They asked what I was doing and I said looking for jobs.
They were shocked and asked "why?" I told them the story,
which was that I had been trying to escape being an engineer that just sits
behind a computer all day and makes CAD models and NEVER in 7 years got to talk
to anyone...boring! I had started part time grad school a year before
trying to become a project manager or sales person, someone that TALKS to
people on a daily basis. Luckily, or unluckily, I got hired as a
project manager at a company in the plastics industry designing huge machines,
making more money than I could ever imagine! I thought it was my
dream...turns out not. It was in an industry that was growing fast
and I had never done that type of work and they offered to train me for 6
months in the interview. I was hired into a group of 8 people, with
1 mechanical and 1 electrical engineer who had 20 years of experience at the
company, and I was supposed to get trained by the ME. The problem was,
the ME I met in my interview...he quit the Friday before I started on
Monday...and the electrical engineer followed. This was due to managerial
changes that happened before I even started. Nobody told me that 25% of
the staff had just quit...so the first day, the first thing my boss says to me
is "sorry"..."sorry there is no one to train you in a field you
haven't worked in"...and from that day on, my every day was like a
terrible scavenger hunt to do work, finding files I have no idea what they are
named. Imagine looking for a "widget" and someone called it a
"whatzit" and you have to find a needle in a haystack every day.
After several months I had become so jaded that the highest paying job of
my life was this!
I had to explain this
to my international friends over a beer and they were shocked as well because I
never complained about it. Now, these friends of mine I was having beer with
were doing cancer research at a the local children's hospital and they think
very differently than us Midwestern folk. The first thing they asked is
"why the hell I was still in Cincinnati!?" I am a typical
Midwestern guy, and I grew up without money, and so I have never gone abroad.
Typically the only time we go abroad is study abroad or on our
honeymoons, and I was single, at 30 years old in Ohio. Most people
get married and start making babies and move to the suburban life around 22 to
25 years old. I was a misfit in Ohio and Wisconsin and anywhere I went
except Chicago, but that's another story. Since people travel to other
countries more in Europe, they asked why I didn't take a vacation somewhere amazing.
And I said what I'd said my entire life, I can't afford it and I don't
have anyone to go with. We have this tendency to want to pair up and
never do anything alone, especially introverts like me. So, my friend
Enrico came back saying broke it down like this, "you don't have a job, you
have tons of money saved as an engineer at this last job, you don't have a
mortgage, school is out for the summer, you don't have a long term girlfriend,
or even a cat? What the hell are you still doing here?! You could die of cancer
tomorrow. Go live man!!!”
I have to admit here
that I did have a passport I never used from a previous job, and after going
home to my area which had bars and clubs, had several more depressed drinks.
That night I ended up with a non-refundable 6 week ticket in and out
to Napoli, Italia (Naples, Italy) for 3 days later. Let me repeat, 3
days later and I spent 2000$ since it was double the cost. When I woke up
that Saturday morning, after letting the fear sink in, and there was a LOT of
fear, I sent my friend Enrico a text, "I did a bad thing man!"
"What" "I bought a ticket to Italy...in 3 days for
42 nights!" He came back with "you, my friend, are the craziest
American I know!!! Come over Sunday, we gotta make plans." Let me
point out here, I'd never been abroad, did have a passport, and since I grew up
poor I never in my life had hopes of going to another country. You just
don't do that sort of thing alone. I did not even have a back pack...I
got a solid backpackers bag now. I also did not have anything but a 42 night
ticket in and out of Naples. No hotel, no car, and horror movies have
given me a major fear of hostels. I did not know how public
transportation worked or how big Italy was. I was completely ignorant of
the rest of the world.
Enrico had me buy a
travel guide, the "Lonely Planet" travel guide for Italy; he said
that was going to be my "Bible". And it was! I have a
guide for Italy, Western Europe and now the US. I went to his house and
he and his awesome girlfriend Valeria went over what I was to do in their
hometown giving me 1 week of plans. He even set me up with 2 nights in a
bed and breakfast and let me use his Italian cell phone on my 6 weeks abroad.
I already had contacts of both of their friends on Facebook and in the
phone. I cannot tell you how much these 2 have changed my life!
Those stories in Naples I could write a book on. I could also write
a book just on the things I screwed up as a newbie traveler. The only
thing I was certain of was that I had a ticket Italy and 2 friends in Paris I
met in Cincinnati, Ohio. 42 days in Europe with no plans, and basically
unlimited fundage on my credit cards, yup every day I made once in a life time
memories.
After my awesome
friend Deanna dropped me off at the airport at the butt crack of dawn, I
boarded the plane alone. 3 flights later
I had been dropped off in the most beautiful weather I had ever seen in Naples,
and the second I stepped off the plane I knew something in my mind snapped or
cracked or something. I was broken…to my
old life. I was doing something no one
could ever understand. My friend got me
a BnB in the historic center of Naples, very non-touristy area. The energy was the first thing I noticed and
the fresh air. The crazy amounts of
people speaking in tongues I could not understand. I did the stuff on my list and had read a
great deal of my “Lonely Planet” Italy guide that taught me maps, history of
the city, speaking some words, hotels, hostels, and ways to get around the
city. It was an amazing help! The first 2 nights I stayed in an empty BnB
and had no idea about hostels yet, until I randomly ran into 2 French Canadians
girls getting yelled at by a guard trying to buy ticket in French but he spoke
Italian. Luckily, all my French friends
speaking in front of me taught me how to catch their language. Those girls and I ended up hanging out in
this Castle in Naples and then they took me to their hostel after I mentioned I
was staying alone. This changed my life
on so many levels. We walked into what
was rated the best hostel in Naples…it wasn’t dark or dreary and scary, but lit
up with young, friendly international people sitting on bean bag chairs
watching movies and drinking beer! After
that day I brought my stuff with me and spent the rest of my time until Paris
in hostels making once in a life time stories.
I ended up in 12
cities in 5 countries on my solo trip. I
met people who had similar stories or even better ones and listened in awe of
how international people live. The funny
thing is everywhere I went, everyone asked if I was from New York or
California, a state I’d never been to, based on my personality. I went to
Naples, Rome, Florence, Sienna, Venice, Salzburg, Munich, Genoa (Cinque Terre
national park where I almost died cliff diving), Nice, Barcelona (my favorite
city), Pamplona ( Running of the Bulls festival), and Paris, where my awesome
friend’s family let me stay in a spare room for a week and were amazing at
educating me on France. The countries
were Italy, Austria, Germany, France and Spain, with a layover in London
twice.
The most important
lesson I learned is how different and friendly travelers can be to each
other. While I was in a hostel in Florence,
Italy, I was introduced to Couchsurfing by an Aussie girl. I joined then and there after hearing about
it. The problem is you don’t have much Wi-Fi
in Europe so I never used it in Europe.
When I got home in mid-July to Cincinnati, Ohio I was already planning
on leaving the city, but I needed a job to save up money, and I didn’t know
where to move? I got a job doing
aerospace engineering and I forgot about Couchsurfing until August or September,
when I got my first request from a young guy from Los Angeles, CA. The reason I hosted this dude was doing a
cross country trip by himself…10 years younger than me, and outdoing me. He taught me how nice all the people were,
but at the end of the day, everyone in the Midwest is the same. I learned how worldly and traveled the people
in California were. Based on staying
friends with John and another friend who escaped Cincinnati to San Fran, I
planned a trip to CA to Couchsurf for my first time.
I took my 2 weeks of vacation
time during Christmas and decided to check out CA. I spent 12 days Couchsurfing in San Fran, Los
Angeles to see my first Couchsurfer but stayed with another, San Diego a house
away from the beach, and Tijuana, Mexico for my birthday, New Year’s Eve. The best part of staying on someone’s couch
is that you get to know the locals, the hangouts, not just the touristy areas
your corporate hotel has been paid to tell you.
I decided that while I loved SF, it rained every day I was there but
one, LA is too much fakeness and too dirty water on the beaches, and I never
even imagined going to San Diego, but a friend I met in a hostel in Europe
lived here so I checked it out. I stayed
on the beach, in December when my hometown is -30 degrees! It was paradise!
I went home, dropped
out of grad school, got overtime at my work, worked 7 days a week for months
and saved up. I sold all my worldly belongs
except what fit in my car and what planned on being a single city to check out
on my way to CA, turned into me seeing 14 places and hitting my 37th
state. I went from my hometown in
Wisconsin all the way down to Key West most southern point, and from the
Atlantic Ocean on the East coast to the Pacific here in CA. It was an eye opening experience to be let
into others homes and have dinner or be shown around their favorite spots. I did have to sleep in my car 5 nights, but
it was pretty nice weather in May. My
favorite spots are driving across the Florida Keys to Key West and New Orleans
for its amazing energy and culture you don’t see anywhere else.
I am in San Diego now
and have hosted many people on Couchsurfing and Airbnb now. I live 2 blocks from the most beautiful beach
in the country. I want to go live in
Europe in the next few years after my time in SD. I’ve got 2 years and my new graduate program
is up and I’ll take it from there. I’m
no longer afraid to do things alone, because of that “beer that changed my life.” I recommend you go out and try something you
are afraid of today. Don’t wait because
you will never do it!
