Essay On Couchsurfing

The internet gives individuals a tool for keeping in touch with family and friends that are in geographically dispersed locations, or when traveling and separated from support networks, while also facilitating the formation of new relations” (Rosen, Lafontaine & Hendrickson, 2011). One of this tool undoubtedly is Couchsurfing. From technical view it is a hospitality exchange and social networking website with platform for members from around the world locate accommodations while traveling by staying in the homes of other members. But from founders’ view it is a “small passion project” created for people who anywhere would want to share their homes with strangers. Couchsurfing is a global community of 10 million people in more than 200,000 cities

It does not mean that society nowadays lost identity and sense of national belonging because cultural identities aren’t static, they are dynamic and constructed situationally in particular place and time (Shultz & Lavenda). Democritus of Abdera wrote, “To a wise man, the whole earth is open; for the native land of a good soul is the whole earth.” Thus people have relentless desire to travel, discover world cultures and to coexistence with world citizens. That is what make them cosmopolitans. Due to (Beck & Cronin, 2004) the human condition has itself become cosmopolitan, no borders exist anymore in any part of our life: travelling, communication, terror. But process of becoming cosmopolitan is not based only on travelling thanks to Couchsurfing. Some members of this portal also create local groups which make regular multicultural meetings. Participants are not only native inhabitants but also couchsurfers from around the world. Thanks to this kind of events local people gain another opportunity to explore other cultures without leaving country. This is very important activity because it changes perception of native