Free accommodation - It's not a magic

I don't use Couchsurfing just to have free accommodation, it's more than that. However it's one of the advantages that I can have when I'm traveling. 

Well, safe in Turin after a long trip until there. I just arrived in my host place (Couchsurfing), she had to meet some friends and let me in her place, her entire apartment for someone that she knew few minutes before.

First detail: It wasn’t easy like that to find a host in Turin. I send a lot of requests and i had lot of rejections. I really like Couchsurfing, but I have the impression that in some places guys and girls prefer to host girls, for particular reasons. 

Girls feel safer when they are hosting girls, because for a new user they can feel afraid in the beginning and have the fear about a guy try to do something with them (to be raped). I can perfectly understand it, it’s a reality of the society. It could be a really deep topic, but it’s better talk about it later, otherwise I would lose the focus of my subject now. 

About the reason of guys, it’s particular for each one, I don’t know specifically the reason (I just guess), but usually not often a guy accept me to stay in his place.

So, I just found a host two weeks ago, all good! Everything ready to travel and in the same day that I would arrive my guest just canceled my stay with her for personal problems. Yeah, it’s not a hotel that you have warranty of stay, they can cancel with you even 1 min before you arrive. I really needed to find a new guest in few hours to avoid to pay for a Airbnb or hostel. Free accommodation isn't my goal when I use Couchsurfing as I said before, but it’s one of the advantages for a backpacker with a low budget.

Gladly I found this girl that accepted to host me. She told me in advantage that she would be busy, but provided me a really comfortable room and let me in her apartment with her keys.

This is the second detail: What do you think about let free access of your home in a house of two girls for a ‘’latino guy’’ with a non traditional European stereotype (afro hair, big beard)?

In the day after we could hang out and talk more, she told me that she did a trip for 1 year around USA, always using Couchsurfing, traveling by boat from Europe to USA, hitchhiking and other backpack stuff. I didn’t need to ask her how she started to trust in people. I just could feel that over time traveling we lose fears, we start to believe more in people and learn the important to help and accept a help as well.