Susanne Uhl Vening tells about Couch Surfing.com, a social network that connects members to a global community of travelers.
https://www.couchsurfing.com/
Susanne Uhl-Vening was born 1952 in Germany, married to my Dutch husband for almost 30 years
Lived in Germany and Holland and worked in marketing and sales of fragrances for international companies
Hobbies: ceramics, design, literature, traveling, cooking
In my leisure time I studied NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and made my NLP master coach degree after 2 years: New view of life, new convictions and knowing myself better, great experience!
15 years ago, we pushed the “reset button” in our life and decided to live in Italy.
We bought a little hamlet and with the help of a mortgage we had it restored into a small holiday resort, Borgo Belfiore, Renting holiday apartments and yet being 24 hours together and enjoying the Italian way of life.
Transcript
Liz Sumner
My guest today is Susanna Uhl Vening. 15 years ago Susanna and Peter, her husband of nearly 30 years, bought a little Italian hamlet, and with the help of a mortgage had it restored into a small holiday resort, Borgo Belfiore, near Arcevia in Le Marche, Italy. Welcome, Suzanne.
Susanne Uhl Vening
Thank you for having me.
Liz Sumner
My pleasure. What with the weddings and other events you host over at least three seasons at Bergo Belfiore I know you don’t get a lot of time to travel. But you’ve told me about something that I’ve never heard of before. And that’s couch surfing. Tell us about couch surfing.
Susanne Uhl Vening
Oh, it was my husband to introduced me to carry surfing. And couchsurfing, in fact, is a social network that connects its members to a global community of travelers. And it’s all about sharing, it’s no cost. It’s safe, because reference are mandatory. And it’s shaping your lifestyle, your hobbies, your interest, and sometimes your home.
Liz Sumner
Wow. Okay, so So how does it work? What happens?
Susanne Uhl Vening
You make a profile of your expectations and what you offer to couch surfers on the site. And then some people use it for traveling low cost. So they go to a city and look, if and that city is a couch surfer, you can kind of Google inside the network. And you’ll find for example, Liz in Pergola, and you see her profile, and you see that she knows all about music and art, but she probably has no room to have you sleeping, but you can share her interests and she probably shows you around in Pergola and you find someone else who has the room to offer and say, Oh, good, I’m seeing Liz in the afternoon. But maybe next day, I go to see Charles, who has a room and I can sleep there for a night.
Liz Sumner
So it’s not just accommodations, you’re able to meet people as the main point.
Susanne Uhl Vening
It’s all about sharing. And some people like to share their homes and offer you a bit. But it’s not about accommodation only. For example, we have been in Budapest with Italian friends. And we went to a nice hotel. But in the afternoon, we met a historic teacher. And she showed us around in Budapest. And so we knew much more about the architecture and the people and how it works. And then she showed us a lot of no cost. And we invited her for dinner and we had a nice afternoon. She was a couch surfer and she couldn’t offer a bed and we didn’t want to because we were the four of us.
Liz Sumner
And it’s not like an equal exchange. You don’t have to host the person who has hosted you.
Susanne Uhl Vening
Absolutely not. We have been guests in India, and this Indian family will probably never come to Italy. But we stayed for days in their home. And so we got inside information how how does it work? In India? What do you eat? What do you greetings and where do you go to? So it’s more about sharing information.
Liz Sumner
Wow. So where have you gone? And where? Where have you actually stayed in the person’s home or on their couch?
Susanne Uhl Vening
I’ve stayed in South Africa. And we even made friends. So one couple we go there every time when we are in South Africa. So you make you make friends if you have a click so so we stayed in South Africa, we stayed in India, we stayed in Berlin. We said a couple of times I don’t recall all the all the events and all the times we have been there
Liz Sumner
Anytime you’ve ever felt kind of uncomfortable?
Susanne Uhl Vening
No, it you know what surprises me is the trust that people have with each other. So for example, we went to Berlin and there was a lady psychologist and she just had a new apartment in a huge flat and she showed us her apartment said This is your room. This is my bedroom. This is the bathroom and the kitchen. Feel free. But you know, I have an appointment this afternoon. So here are the keys. I go out and I see you this evening. So we never met before and she gave us the key to her apartment.
Liz Sumner
Wow. I love the idea of that there is so much trust. So what? What kind of information do you give that makes the site so secure? What what do you put in,
Susanne Uhl Vening
make it you make a profile. And in that profile, you tell something about you and what your interest, your view of life, your hobbies, and what you can offer to couch surface, what is your what are your key qualities that you can offer art, music, cooking, and then you make it as honest as possible. And if you can post people, you say I’ve got so many only a sofa bed, or I have a room with a known bathroom. So you are quite detailed. So that people if they find you they know what to expect. And for example, just the day before Christmas, we had a Dutch couple here, because we only host couch surfers when we don’t have summer guests in so in low season. So we had the Dutch couple they were traveling, let’s say the cheap way, they didn’t have much money, but they wanted to travel around. So we hosted them for a night. And we realized that we shared a lot of value. So not knowing people we had wonderful evening together. And they they slept in one of our apartments. And next morning, we had breakfast together and they left. So what they need to do mandatory is to leave a reference about us. And we have to leave a reference about them. And you can never delete those references. For example, we found the young guy on Facebook, and one of the guests said, ladies never go to this guy because he has only one target take you to bed. Oh. So he will never have ladies with that expectation. So that makes it safe because he cannot delete delete this account or this reference. Okay.
Liz Sumner
So where do you want to go next? On couchsurfing? What would you look for?
Susanne Uhl Vening
We are looking for our vacation in February because we travel in winter. And we’re thinking about Vietnam and maybe a combination of a relaxed vacation and one week bike vacation along the Mekong Delta.
Liz Sumner
Wow. So the network is everywhere. Is it..
Susanne Uhl Vening
It’s global.
Liz Sumner
Are there any places that you’ve found that the community is not very well established?
Susanne Uhl Vening
Not that time. No, I mean, you can kind of Google in the network. We search for age, for example, because I’m not interested in staying with young people of 20 because they have different interests. So we go of interest and of age and of place and then you find a couple some do respond very quickly. And some don’t. You know, I was hesitating a bit with couchsurfing in the beginning. Because we socialize all summer, we have 13 families coming all week. And they all asked us why are you in Italy and one day in my vacation, I like to have some privacy and relax. But I realized the advantage is much bigger than this socializing effect. So I I love it and we’d mostly do it at the beginning of a vacation and maybe at the end.
Liz Sumner
I see what you’re talking about because the idea is makes me a little uncomfortable because I’m not instantly warm with strangers and I’m not sure I’d I’d want to be that intimate with somebody right off but But you you you say that the the advantages are are greater than than the privacy.
Susanne Uhl Vening
yeah and you tell about yourself what you want to share I mean depends on you and on your host not every host is so going into details and you can make that very clear when you ask people if they want to meet you because you communicate by an internal mail and then you can write your expectations and your wishes.
Liz Sumner
Have you ever had to leave a bad review?
Susanne Uhl Vening
No not that not that I can think of no.
Liz Sumner
Any descriptions not as described any any places that were not what you were expecting?
Susanne Uhl Vening
No, the thing is that some people you really like to meet they don’t respond and you can on the on the website you see responding 90% or responding 20% And then you are a bit disappointed because that was just the person you thought is interesting. And then but no, no, we have had that couch surfers in Johannesburg and at the beginning, I thought, Oh, this house is a mess. We had a very clean room. And it was very, and the kitchen was very clean, but they was a lot of disorder. And that makes me stress. If I say disorder, I try to, to clean up the paper. so warm and so nice. So we saw them. I think, three times, we always return and they send us photos, and we just we became friends.
Liz Sumner
Wow, I would not have thought that this I didn’t know that this organization existed.
Susanne Uhl Vening
There is another one, for example, I never had looked into it. That is called to be Welcome. Okay. So I think it’s more or less this the same idea
Liz Sumner
I know they’re ones where you work, where you’re traveling, or they give you a place to stay in exchange for working. But this is simply–
Susanne Uhl Vening
I did look into it and I wouldn’t because I work enough.
Liz Sumner
Very true.
Susanne Uhl Vening
But there are house exchanges that you can stay have people stay in your home. And that was friends of us do.
Liz Sumner
Yeah, Michael and I have done that. And that was that was a good experience. We really enjoyed that. Okay, so how long have you been doing this?
Susanne Uhl Vening
For four or five years. And we almost always do it when we go somewhere. And it’s not that we want to cheap accommodation, but we are people people and my husband more even than I am and so but we enjoy the contacts we make that way.
Liz Sumner
Okay, I think I’m gonna have to give it a try. So what advice do you have?
Susanne Uhl Vening
I’m sure you will enjoy it really? Okay. Okay.
Liz Sumner
So what advice do you have for somebody who is curious, but and wants to check it out?
Susanne Uhl Vening
I’m not sure where whether you can check out a lot about being a member, but the membership doesn’t cost anything. In the, in the past, it was $25 to sign up. But meanwhile, I think it’s free to sign up. And if you sign up with a small profile, then you can look into the community and see what you find. And then I would strongly advise to, to make a good profile. Or give you an example, we asked the lady in Cape Town. And, and she said, Oh, I’m sorry, I cannot host you because I have a friend of mine and family. And so maybe next time, and thank you, thank you. And next days, she emailed us again and said, Oh, I saw your profile. It looks very interesting. You know what I do, too? I will sleep in the guest room and I offer you my bedroom. And you’re more than welcome.
Liz Sumner
Wow. Wow. So it really is a network of people who want to meet other people.
Susanne Uhl Vening
Oh, exactly. So that that’s why I’m saying make a good profile of yourself that is attractive as you are.
Liz Sumner
So if you don’t have any references yet, how do you prove that you’re trustworthy?
Susanne Uhl Vening
You can. You can have friends talking about you. Okay, there is post references, guest references and friends references. Okay, and so you can ask some friends to do something about you. Okay, good.
Liz Sumner
Well, I think it’s gonna be something we might check out. I love the idea that you can simply meet people in a location and they might be interested in showing you around.
Susanne Uhl Vening
Yes, if you don’t feel like sleeping in people’s houses, then you can just meet them.
Liz Sumner
With Airbnb, we meet people and sleep in their houses. So but this sounds, the sounds I’m going to consider checking it out because I’m still a little bit–
Susanne Uhl Vening
Why is it you’re hesitating? What is it?
Liz Sumner
just just just being with strangers? I’m kind of reserved, but I think we might try it. Certainly to —
Susanne Uhl Vening
You can– For example, when we like to sleep in people’s houses, we always look at their home because you describe your home. And we all went we only go where we have a private bathroom and a private bedroom. Okay. And there are people we had the most luxury we had in South Africa with with with the entrance to the pool or what have you. So there’s is amazing possibilities.
Liz Sumner
Yeah, yeah, I suppose if people were coming as your guests, they would get the benefit of your beautiful place. So so so they’re there. Okay, alrighty. I’m going to give it a try. My thanks to Suzanne Uhl Vening. There are links to her resort Borgo Belfiore in the podcast notes and a link to the couchsurfing website. I invite you all to tell me what you’ve wanted to try and what you’d like to hear about in an upcoming episode. And if you enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a review on iTunes. It helps new listeners find us and I really appreciate it. I’m Liz Sumner, reminding you to be bold, and thanks for listening