Interview: Augusto Peña
Augusto Peña, active member of the CouchSurfing community agreed to our interview.
Note: CS = Couchsurfing
Can you introduce yourself to us and tell your story briefly?
I’m a Peruvian guy (Latin America) and I live in Barcelona, Spain for almost 3 years. I’m economist and came to Barcelona to study a master, then decided to stay nowadays I work in data analytics. I love traveling and visited 26 countries, lived in 4 Peru, India, Spain and Poland. Regards my hobbies beside travelling are biking, reading and enjoy art expressions.
What led you to start Couchsurfing? What’s the best thing about it?
As a traveler I always enjoyed discovering cultures and meet new people around the world, so Couchsurfing comes as a natural extension of that like a Netflix‘s spin off, with the COVID-19 travelling become harder so I found there a perfect occasion to enjoy almost all the advantages of travelling without doing it.
For me travelling is more than visit touristic places, for me travelling is to connect with the local culture and open your mind to new ideas, new ways of seeing the world, for me is never black or white, there always some point in the middle.
The best is you could meet people around the globe without moving your city for example I met amazing people from Australia, Japan or Singapore and those countries are not in my priority list to visit but I already know a little bit of their culture.
Are there any disadvantages associated with it?
As a host I believe the main disadvantage is some people feel CS is only a free place to sleep, for me is a way to connect with the locals and open your heart to the surfers, so eventually appeared people who only want to take advantage of you. Luckily I think is just a tiny part of the community.
As a surfer could be hard to find host in small towns or cities not so popular or even get replies after you made the trip.
When you travel, do you prefer a hotel or use CS?
Both, because they cover different needs for example if I go with my friends I know would be harder to find any CS host so we would go for hotel or Airbnb or try to combine with CS to meet people.
As a solo traveler I prefer CS because let me immerse in the local culture easily because you are going to find that nice bar that only knows the locals and doesn’t appear in the lists for example.
For whom do you think CS is not suitable?
For people who only want a free place to sleep, would be so much better for them to find any cheap hostel instead of making awkward situations with the host. Because at the end the host made effort giving his time and energy to the surfers.
What was your best hosting experience?
I would say in Poland as a surfer, the hosts I had there were so warm and so nice to me, they make me feel at home since the first moment. We connected from the first glance and we talked and laughed a lot I really enjoyed my time at Poland thanks to CS.
Conversely, did something special ever happen to you during the hosting? Any bad experiences?
Yes I remember 2 situations 1st when I had to host someone but sadly I need to cancel with anticipation because my load work, but the surfer starting to complaining and saying I could not do that because was my duty.
Second one with some Austrians they only came to sleep, require me a spare key and took showers like my home would be a hostel, is sadly people sometimes make bad impressions of CS. So for me the best solution was to require them to leave
And something about Barcelona – why Barcelona and what would you recommend to know to anyone who would like to live in Barcelona?
Barcelona has the chilling vibes, has almost everything, have the beach, the mountains, the art, the cosmopolitan, the food, the party, the young people, the bike friendly city,and of course the nice weather. Is like you probably going to find something you like in Barcelona and also has lovely towns nearby.
A recommendation would be try to understand the local culture, the Catalans because they are little different than the Spanish and for find a place to live give him time because in this city is really hard to find a nice place to live so many people want to live in this medium size city, also the language is always useful coming with some Spanish knowledge would be helpful because not all the people speak English in the center and touristic places for sure but normal places not really.
The people here is almost always temporary they come for job,for study and they stay for some years then leave. Is nice if you find a job to spend a couple of years in Barcelona.
Many thanks to Augusto Peña.
Did you like this interview with Augusto Peña? You can find more interviews in English on our site, such as this one.
