A Need for Change

“I had my first Couchsurfing experience in Qazvin [a city in Iran]. Before I always stayed in hotels and hostels. I was traveling for two and a half months, and I was very depressed and lonely. I really needed some changes. I was traveling to make videos, and I got too much into it and I stopped caring about traveling. I sort of became a workaholic. And it didn’t feel good. And when I realized it, actually I was in Tatev [a village and a medieval monastery in Armenia], I decided I’m not going to do this anymore, I need more friends, I need to connect with people to really learn the culture.

So I came to Qazvin. And it was a nice coincidence. I met a perfect host, he was a first-timer and he was very excited about it. And there was another traveler from Poland and he was traveling for 5 months and his budget was 1 euro per day. He only hitchhiked, and kind of depended on people who invite him and offered him food and place to stay. And I felt kind of sorry that I traveled by buses and stayed in hotels, and I got jealous of his adventures and style of traveling. We traveled together for some time, then we split. But he was a big inspiration for me to change the way I traveled.”