Hi! I’m Daniel. Or Dan. Or honestly whatever you want to call me - I’ve lost track of the number of nicknames I’ve been given.

Connecting with people is my absolute favorite part of travel. I got turned on to couch surfing back in 2006 and have loved surfing, hosting, and meeting people both through this site and organically ever since. I love to strike up conversations with people at cafés, hiking trails, music concerts, bars, markets, or wherever I can find a potential new friend. I find those connections seem to often lead to the best experiences, way better than whatever I can find in a guide book and way more enjoyable for sharing it with someone new.

I work in the renewable energy world - government policy, research science, and business. I’m passionate about finding a path forward for people to generate the electricity they need while treating the environment well and protecting the earth. In my personal time, I love backpacking and hiking in the colorado mountains, playing ultimate frisbee, DJing, playing drums, doing acro yoga and some circus fun, dancing (especially blues dance but also swing, zouk, fusion, salsa, or whatever), and generally having a good time.

I’d love to find live music, dancing, places to meet awesome new people, and generally experience the less-seen side of new places.

Interests

Lots. I most utterly thoroughly and totally love music in any form, most especially playing hand drums. :-) Djembe, conga, doumbek, darbouka, cajon, bongos, tables, chairs, my stomach... anything.
What else do I do? I'm a tea fanatic and will go on and on about tasty quality genmaichas and gunpowders and Poours and lapsang souchongs any day of the week. I fence; I hang glide (that one's really cool; you should totally try it some day). I love to hike and roam and climb. I read. I love cooking. Very much. What else? I think I'd have to say that I try very hard to enjoy everything, so before this paragraph gets exceedingly long, I'll just say that I like most things. :-)

• books
• burningman
• dancing
• cooking
• traveling
• music
• drums
• hiking
• archery
• physics
• djing
• acroyoga

Music, Movies, and Books

House of Leaves (Danielewski),Stranger in a Strange Land (Heinlein), The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand), Terry Pratchett, Godel Escher Bach (Hofstadter).
The Bad Plus, Medeski Martin & Wood, Gomez, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, The White Stripes, Devotchka, Ben Charest, Blockhead, Gotan Project, Ratatat, Mussorgsky, Shostakovich, Pink Floyd, The Flaming Lips.
Fantasia, Snatch, The 5th Element, Sin City, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Brazil, Repo Man, Pan's Labyrinth, Dark City.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Burning Man. The most absolutely amazing display of people interacting the best way possible. One week of mind blowing, faith-in-humanity restoring, utterly artisticinteractivehedonisticwanderlusty differentness.

Teach, Learn, Share

I would love to teach drumming. The more people that can feel that rhythm the better. So I am always down for teaching as much as I know about hand percussion.
Outside of that I don't know if I'm qualified to teach anything, but I'm more than willing to nerd out about renewable energy, physics (since I hopefully know at least something after spending 7 years studying for phd) , DJing, acro yoga, or just generally talking.

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Austria, Bahamas, Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Japan, Laos, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Peru, Portugal, Thailand

Countries I’ve Lived In

Argentina, Spain, United States

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