Hello!

My friend Cassie and I are travelling together for a year. We'd love to meet some locals to learn more about the places we visit, and to make close friends and memories along the way.

Our plan is to go to Patagonia for winter, then India south to north in spring, then China east to west, getting to Kazakhstan/Kyrgyzstan in summer, then maybe Eastern Europe and the mediterrenean for fall. Then 2025 Winter maybe New Zealand but we probably need to find a job by then.

This profile used to just be for Jesse, and all the references are for him. Jesse's been travelling since 2021, working remotely for a few years and then just travelling for a while. Meanwhile Cassie was living in Tokyo. We're college friends from Texas.
We're both pretty quiet. We don't like loud bars. Cassie doesn't drink at all, and I not much. We like spicy food, trying new foods, cultural experiences, board games, gardening, hiking, camping, and scuba diving.

~ vv Jesse's old profile vv

I really like spicy food and I try to not eat meat. But I'll eat anything that someone wants to share with me from their culture.
I really love hiking, camping, mountains, rocky coasts, marshlands, desert canyons, and pretty much all nature. I also really like scuba diving.
My biggest hobby outside of traveling is gardening. I like cacti and caudex plants. The fatter the plant the better. I used to have a pretty big garden with chiles, sweet potatoes, carrots, daikon, peanuts, green onion, citrus trees, herbs, tons of succulents and cacti, and a lot of indoor plants. I built a huge raised bed, an irrigation system, and a large composter with my best friend.

If you're curious, my mom is from Beijing and my dad is from New Orleans. I grew up in a pretty Asian suburb of Dallas TX, with lots of time spent in China, New Orleans, and Mexico. Until high school, we would travel every year to China to visit family, spend holidays and summers in New Orleans out on boats in the bayou catching crabs and looking for alligators, and take road trips through Mexico every year in an old van. After college I lived in San Francisco for 5 years, with most weekends spent hiking through the redwoods, cooking over bonfires on the coast at sunset, or looking for little critters in tidepools.

I started travelling alone for long periods during the pandemic. By now I've spent over 2 years in both Latin America and Asia. I've spent about 1 year in China and Mexico, 6 months in Japan and Colombia, 4 months in Thailand, 3 months in Brazil and Turkey, and 2 months in South Korea and Taiwan. Everywhere else has been for a month or less.

If you're curious, my spotify is https://open.spotify.com/user/pjhell42 and my instagram is @stuntedshrimp . I'm trying to share more but I'm not very good at it.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I want to meet other people! I want to meet people who have had very different lives from me, learn about cultural differences, and make new friends.

I don't have goals to travel to x number of countries or anything like that. I'm just trying to learn and understand how the world works.

When hosting, I just really like sharing. I like sharing the places that I know and like, and like helping others have nice experiences like I've had.

Interests

• cooking
• walking
• gardening
• movies
• music
• hiking
• backpacking
• camping
• scuba diving
• snorkeling
• parks
• mountains
• food
• tea
• forests
• trekking
• plants
• diving
• deserts
• long walks
• spicy food
• drinks
• gardens
• bonfires
• cactus
• senderismo
• montañas
• bosques
• camping and hiking
• matcha
• gardening,
• hacer senderismo

Music, Movies, and Books

Used to be mostly hip-hop and r&b but now it's more eclectic and acoustic. I try to pick up local music from wherever I am and make a new playlist for every place I go. All my spotify playlists are public https://open.spotify.com/user/pjhell42 ! Some favorite artists are Frank Sinatra, Kanye West, H.E.R, Jhene Aiko, Kendrick Lamar, Ennio Morricone, J Cole, Karol G, Lauryn Hill, Post Malone, Joy Oladokun, and Young Miko.

I like intense movies that are very emotional, very beautiful, or with interesting plots. I keep track of all the movies I've liked and all the movies that people tell me to see, so send me your recs! Some of my favorites are:
Cowboy Bebop
Dorehedoro
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood
Into the Spiderverse
It's such a beautiful day
Odd Taxi
Oldboy
Pan's Labrynth
Paprika
Shoplifters
and most films by Tarantino and Miyazaki

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Scuba dived with sea lion pups in La Paz
Saw humpback whales jumping in Hawaii and La Paz
Swam with whale sharks in La Paz and Koh Tao
Walked among the trees of Sequoia National Park
Hiked the Narrows and Angel's Landing of Zion National Park
Saw the milky way camped half-way up Mt Rainier
Saw the sun set over a sea of clouds in Huang Shan, and again in the Paramo in Colombia, and in the coastal mountains of San Francisco
Island hopped along the estuaries, bayous, and barrier islands of the gulf coast for a few weeks in an old sailboat
Climbed Mt Fuji from the very base to the top for sunrise
Spent Dia de los Muertos in Oaxaca
Road tripped across Xinjiang
Saw sunset over the clouds in central Taiwan
Explored Samarkand and Angkor Wat
Saw the northern lights dancing over a lake near Seattle

What I Can Share with Hosts

If you host me, I'd like to buy you dinner or some drinks or cook for you (if you want to eat my food). I think my food is pretty good, but I don't cook meat. I can cook delicious brocollini and kale, some good pastas, some mexican dishes, a southern US dish, and some chinese american dishes (if I can find the ingredients). And of course I can help with chores around the house.

I like giving recommendations about places I've been. Usually I give much more recommendations than people expect when they ask me. Especially with nature, hikes, nice places to see, where to camp and nice places to drive to, stuff like that.

I can teach how to play Fly Me to the Moon on piano, with all the chords, and why the chords work that way. And other jazz chord progressions that are related.

But mostly, I can offer a new friend! We can have some great conversations and have a great time together :)

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belize, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, Cayman Islands, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan, Viet Nam, Virgin Islands, British

Countries I’ve Lived In

Brazil, China, Colombia, Japan, Mexico, Thailand, Turkey, United States