currently in: 🇬🇷 Crete 🇬🇷
WhatsApp: +614567222nine4

BIO

Paolo (Pasha) born in 1988 in the northeast of Italy. During and after my studies in Translation and Interpreting, I lived in Russia, Poland, and Ukraine for research projects, internships, and a couple of Italian teacher positions.
In 2016, I set off for China to work as an English tutor in the beautiful coastal city of Xiamen.
By 2018, the call of the road was getting louder and louder. I returned to Europe, bought a touring bike, and pointed my wheels eastward. I pedalled all the way to the UAE, then boarded a plane to Kathmandu and continued my journey overland towards New Zealand before the world came to a halt.
Between 2020 and 2022, I roamed across Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, and the Canary Islands, mostly on two wheels.
In March 2022, I found myself near Przemyśl, Poland, helping Ukrainian refugees as the war unfolded.
A year later, I landed in Australia with a Working Holiday Visa, and spent two unforgettable years travelling through its vast, sunburnt lands, from tropical coastlines to remote areas of the outback.
Now, in the summer of 2025, I’m back on the move — ready to get lost (and found) in new lands, and to cross paths with beautiful, kindred souls.

MY INTERESTS AND LIKES

I’m drawn to deep, meandering conversations — especially with those who have wandered far, listened wide, and lived fully. I believe in a kind of grassroots wisdom: the kind you pick up on dusty roads, around shared meals, or in the quiet spaces between languages.
I have a soft spot for arthouse cinema, film festivals, contemporary art, urbex adventures, Slavic poetry, ex-Yugoslav and Soviet architecture, hitchhiking tales, spontaneous bike odysseys, and slow-travel storytelling.
I can teach languages, share survival tips for hitchhiking and budget solo travel, cook a proper risotto, bake pizza from scratch, or whip up my favourite dessert which is tiramisù. I’m also a bit of an organizing freak: as a minimalist, I believe that living with less clears space for the things that truly matter.

WHAT I DO

I don’t have a “standard” job, and that's by choice: my time is mostly spent exploring this beautiful planet of ours.
That said, I occasionally put my travels on hold and teach languages face-to-face — mainly English but also Italian, my native tongue. I also give Italian classes, though irregularly, on a platform called Preply and for me it’s a lot of fun.

F I Y / Language Vibes

L'italiano è la mia lingua madre.
Я владею русским.
Hablo muy bien español.
Ég tala smá íslensku.
Mówię trochę-trochę po polsku.
我会只一点点中文。
Μαθαίνω ελληνικά μόνος μου, (σιγά-σιγά και με αγάπη!).

MY LAST (serious) TRAVELS
🇧🇴 LA 🇵🇪 TAM 🇨🇴 🚌🥾
🇪🇪 the 🇱🇻 Baltics 🇱🇹 🚙
🇲🇦 Morocco🚗
🇮🇳 India ➡️ Philippines 🇵🇭 🥾
🇮🇹 Italy ➡️ Georgia 🇬🇪 👍🏻🥾
🇮🇸 Iceland 🚗
🇮🇹 Italy ➡️ Canary Islands 🇮🇨 🚴🏻‍♂️
🇮🇹 North Italy ➡️ South Italy 🇮🇹 🚴🏻‍♂️
🇮🇹 Italy ➡️ New Zealand 🇳🇿 🚴🏻‍♂️👍🏻🥾

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

Hosting travellers has always been a bit like travelling for me.
Every time I get to meet some people from this community I get fed with absolutely interesting food for thought.

Interests

budget travels, minimalism, degrowth, organic food, neurolinguistics, translation studies, nature, hiking, India, writing, movies and docus from the USSR, slavic languages, the Caucasus.

• writing
• books
• dining
• recipes
• wine
• white wine
• coffee
• organic food
• off-roading
• movies
• traveling
• minimalism
• music
• hiking
• track and field
• swimming
• communications
• teaching
• freelancing
• languages
• budget travel

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Getting stuck in the quicksands with an off-road vehicle in eastern Iceland.
Being hosted for the night by a local Filipino family during a typhoon on Siquijor island port.
Surviving a motorbike accident in northern Thailand.
Stargazing in utter darkness in central Colombia's Tatacoa desert in the night of my 29th bday.

Teach, Learn, Share

I've been learning how to turn into a non-stop traveller and wander around the world.

What I Can Share with Hosts

a walk, a meal, a coffee, some chats.

Countries I’ve Visited

Albania, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Gibraltar, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Laos, Latvia, Lithuania, Macao, Macedonia, Malaysia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, New Zealand, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, San Marino, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Timor-Leste (East Timor), Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Australia, China, Iceland, Poland, Russian Federation, Ukraine