We are Tom (33 years old) and Karlijn (32 years old), from Melbourne, Australia and Breda, The Netherlands. We met about 7 years ago while travelling in Thailand and a year and a half later Tom moved to The Netherlands.

We are down to earth and love to travel the world and learn new things. We enjoy spending time with family and friends and meeting new people.

Some of our favourite things are: scuba diving, (live) music, sports, hiking and playing (board) games. Tom loves almost every sport in the world, but Australian rules football, cricket, football (soccer) and tennis are his favourites. Karlijn loves almost everything to do with the ocean and would like to become a dive master one day. We like swimming in the ocean, surfing and walking on the beach (often doing beach clean ups).

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

We both quit our jobs at the end of 2022 and travelled the world for 24 months! We always used local transport within a continent and went to some amazing, but also some very interesting 'random' places travelling this way. During a 60 hour train trip from Tanzania to Zambia we met Ramon from Spain who told us how good Couchsurfing was and so we decided to sign up! Since then we have been lucky to stay with many amazing hosts and we really love to CS community!

Our long trip is now over but we want to continue to couchsurf as much as possible when we take holidays. And we also want to repay the favour by hosting people in our apartment in Breda. Breda is a beautiful old city in the south of The Netherlands with a historic city centre, great restaurants and bars, and is very well connected by bus and train to many bigger cities in The Netherlands and Belgium.

Interests

• documentaries
• running
• reading
• eating out
• live music
• hiking
• surfing
• scuba diving
• tennis
• nature
• padel
• boardgames
• world affairs

Music, Movies, and Books

Music - we like a variety of different music, like Paolo Nutini, Noah Kahan, RHCP, Kid Cudi, Joy Oladokun, Xavier Rudd, Bob Dylan, Fleetwood Mac and random songs we Shazam while travelling.

Books- some of our favourite books are Sapiens, Half of a Yellow Sun, The Alchemist, Africa Is Not A Country, I Am Malala and Scar Tissue.

Movies - we don't tend to watch a lot of movies, but we do like some classics like Forrest Gump and Intouchables. We do watch quite a lot of documentaries on a wide range of subjects like sport, politics, food and traveling.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Climbed Mount Kilimanjaro (and Huyana Potosi!)

Teach, Learn, Share

We love to hang out and share all types of (travel) stories! We can teach you a bit about Australian and Dutch cultures and the similarities (and differences) between the two.

What I Can Share with Hosts

We are very easygoing and go with the flow. So we like to spend time together with our host, but also are happy to entertain ourselves. We would like to learn about the culture of the hosts country, go out for a hike together or just go for a coffee or beer. Karlijn likes to cook, so we're happy to make dinner during our stay!

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, France, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Palestine, Panama, Peru, Portugal, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Thailand, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Countries I’ve Lived In

Australia, Denmark, Netherlands