Couchsurfing Diaries- Los Angeles

For the most part we will be staying in hostels and hotels on our trip, but we will also be experimenting with alternative forms of accommodation for a few main reasons 1) meet and get to know locals 2) get to know new places better and 3) to save money! The two main "alternative accommodations" we will use are WWOOFing and Couchsurfing. You could say they are websites, you could also say they are networks of like-minded people. Starting with this post, we hope to share a little bit about our experiences using them and also some of the people we meet along the way.

While we were not planning to couchsurf in LA, some other plans fell through and we ended staying with a lovely couple Kelsey and Evan. Complete strangers a few days ago, they are now our friends- Amazing!

The main things to know about Couchsurfing is that you stay with strangers you find and review on the site and it is free- no money should be given in exchange for being hosted.

Basically how it works is you create a profile for yourself and you can either host people or ask to be hosted. A lot of people will host because one day they hope to be hosted in return. Others are on just to host, meet new people and show people their city. Others, like us, are on to meet people and be hosted while traveling and hope to one day host people. Either way, it is free- no money is exchanged. Often, time is spent together and you learn from each others stories and life experiences and there is mutual enrichment. And you are left amazed at the hospitality of others in the midst of a world full of fear of the other and the unknown.

Back to Kelsey and Evan. Kelsey is from Colorado and now works on production crews in Hollywood and Evan is from New Jersey and works in lighting and making lighting fixtures/experiences for clients and as art. The night we arrived from the airport, they picked us up at the closest metro stop and they took us to a sushi place where they knew one of the cooks and after we all ordered, we ended up getting 2 or three more complimentary rolls plus a complimentary bottle if sake.  We soon found out that Kelsey loves Japanese culture and knows quite a bit of the language. And she will be in Tokyo the same time as us at the end of April.

We stayed in their extra bedroom on very comfy sofa bed in Boyle Heights, a neighborhood just east of downtown LA. We enjoyed their quirky decorations- lots of swords- some plastic, some that looked pretty real- bright colored plastic toys including what looked like a real life mousetrap game set up along the wall along the stairs from the second to first floor. After dropping a marble at the top, it flows through strategically placed tubes and windmills and makes a few jumps and ends up in a small recipient at the bottom of the stairs. Another decoration highlight- the beautifully painted surf board that hung above our sofa bed. Kelsey is part of a group that plays soccer games on short notice and we (mostly Julio) were hoping to participate in one of those, but the timing just never worked out. 

After four nights with them we headed to Azusa where we've been staying with dear friends Shana and Jaime. I could write pages and pages of how much we love them and all that they've done for us. Adventures we've had with them are coming soon!

Comfy sofa bed!

Kelsey and Evan