COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE My first couch surfing experience: I traveled to Barcelona in 2011 the summer after graduating from high school, and I thought that it was an okay idea to book all hostels on the day that I got there. Little did I know that mid-June in Barcelona is not exactly the time to "wing it". There were a bunch of huge events in the city that week and I could not find a bed ANYWHERE. It was about 12:30am, and the metros were about to stop running. I was begining to accept my fate and face the fact that I would be sleeping outside out the train station on my first night in Europe! A guy sitting next to me saw that I was reading Kafka and we began a conversation. He ended up offering me his couch until I traveled to Paris four days later. We are good friends to this day! The moral of the story: always let the cover of your book show on the metro!

I've travelled through Europe and most of the United States. Some parts of Mexico, Canada, and the Dominican Republic. I once saw a grizzly bear attack a deer in Montana, about 20 feet from my car.