I've been couch surfing for two weeks and it's not like visiting a relative for three days. Here's what I've learned so far:
1. Not just a guest, but a temporary roommate
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Which means you're still doing dishes, laundry, cooking, and cleaning.
2. Wake-up call is always
If you're legitimately camping out on someone's couch, you can hear and see everything, even the imaginary sounds and sights in the night. Someone uses the bathroom at 5 a.m.? You're basically using it with them. Someone making breakfast in the kitchen? Well, so are you. Their routine, is your routine.
3. Food for days
There are snacks you didn't buy and joint dinners. It's basically a family feeding experience.
4. Body pain is collateral for safe housing
Couches are not beds. I repeat: Couches. Are. Not. Beds. For you to nap and sleep in them is unnatural. Ungodly, dare I say. There are only so many ways you can comfortably fit yourself without sinking into the gap between cushions, rolling off the edge, or laying like a vampire in a coffin. Your chiropractor will have a field day.
5. What is your location?
You're basically living in a tent on someone else's land...so forwarding mail gets complicated. Is your permanent address with your parents, whom you see maybe twice a year? Will your packages make it here before you move to the next couch? Will you be arrested for fraud or squatting? What is the address of where you're currently staying? You're not anywhere long enough to even say you were there.
6. Suitcase living
It's one thing to get settled, it's another to unpack. And there really isn't room for you to unpack. Living out of suitcase is never enjoyable, but leaving your things all over someone's house isn't either.
7. Access is the key, well one of them
You've got *free* wifi, a Netflix account, Roko, a fridge, printer, keys to the house and garage, etc. It's like living in a dream home of stuff you didn't have to purchase.
8. Be ready to move at any moment outside the agreed time
You don't want to overstep your boundaries or overstay your visit. The owners of your temporary couch home have needs and desires that trump yours, so don't get too comfy.
9. If you can't store it, toss it
You probably traveled with what you thought was worth bringing. Well, whittle it down. Storage is limited and you can't leave your things here or anywhere forever.
10. 24/7 face time with your gracious and loving friends is a gift
Mi casa es tu casa is being lived out to the fullest. You see your friends and how they live from dawn to dusk. You eat together, laugh together, and clean the living room with their *paying* roommates. And then you leave to the next gracious and loving friend and do the whole shebang all over again.
Couch surfing isn't for everyone, or the most comfortable thing in the world. But it shows you who your friends are, what limits y'all do and don't have, how you want your future home or apartment to be decorated and kept, and how to live at a bare minimum.
