Couchsurfing has given us the opportunity to meet with a bunch of fellow travelers who have gotten to visit places in China we haven’t been. We started by attending a monthly meeting of couchsurfers set up by our friend Brad – he got about 40-50 people out, and it’s always a great time. That night three Taiwanese students of XIamen University stayed the night – one of them spoke excellent English, and I found out she spent a summer in Texas. Since then we’ve hosted 9 people, many from Shanghai, many who have been traveling China for quite a while or are native to the country, and many who have had different takes on their stay. Talking with them, and going on our recent guided tour of China have made me think there seems to be several types of travel.
1) Guided Tours – tour guide, transportation, food, and events preplanned and taken care of.
2) Hostel Travel – going to a country, setting up a few things like where your going to go, but generally being laid back about what you do.
3) Expat Travel – Living in a country, knowing the expat hangouts, not really as interested in the tourist track, some basic language
4) Native/Close to Native Travel – mastery of the language, greater knowledge of the culture.
It’s easy to think that all travel in a country is all the same, but as we learn more about our city, it has slowly started to open up. It’s exciting to think of what our travels and interactions will be like once we master the language.
