Travelistic has posted blogs about the good-karma lodging concept before (check out www.couchsurfing.com if you’re unfamiliar with it), and I’ve written about Couch Surfing myself for the Washington Post’s travel section.

But when you’re a CS member and the new experiences never end, there’s always more to say. While I haven’t been crashing on anyone’s spare loveseat since arriving in Biarritz a few weeks ago, it’s thanks to the site’s mission of bringing like-minded travelers together that I’ve made a great local friend here named Thierry.

He shows us the best tapas places, text messages my boyfriend daily with the surf report from his end of the beach, and is always keen for a cultural conversation that sheds light on the complicated but fascinating nature of Franco-American relations.

He corrects my French, too, which I love.

Last night we had dinner together, and Thierry brought along another Couch Surfer who had contacted him through the site – an Englishman, Chris, who is hitchhiking his way around the South of France during a two-week vacation.
“My mother is very worried,” said Chris, a seasoned hitchhiker in his 40s, as we sat in a cozy Biarritz Italian restaurant and tucked into entrecote steaks. I relayed my own mother’s response when I told her about meeting strangers through Couch Surfing: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” she warned.

If the matriarchs could only see us now.

Travelers from three countries, sharing conversation and a meal, when we otherwise might have been dining alone – and none of that awkwardness of a blind date. Brought together by the Internet, we had a lot in common – most obviously, seeing the world and learning how things are done beyond the backyard. How is it that travelers can talk endlessly on such topics?

“This is what the Internet was meant for, connecting people,” Chris said as we drained the pitcher of vin rouge at the end of the evening, “Not for Ebay.”

And I’d have to agree with the Englishman that hitting up the information super highway to make travel friends offers as much as thumbing it on the open road when it comes to enhancing the travel experience.

- by Terry Ward