Testimonials

If tourism is often measured by the number of stars or nights sold, staying with locals appears as a more human alternative. Hospitality without transaction, based on open doors, tacit rules, and sometimes, slight discomfort.

When Florine Masquelier landed in Nairobi during Covid, she had “no plan”, just “a desire to escape Europe”. Welcomed by a family found on Couchsurfing – an online network connecting travelers and locals, the 29-year-old Belgian thought she would stay “for one or two nights”. She ended up spending three weeks there, “cooking with them, going to buy fish at the market”, integrated as “one more mouth” in a full house. “If we have enough to feed nine mouths, a tenth won’t make a difference”, the mother in the family emphasized.

From Ispahan to Algiers, behind closed doors

A few years earlier, in Ispahan, Iran, a young French teacher, Najme, approached her on the street. The country was under restrictions, Couchsurfing was censored. The invitation to stay with her mother almost felt like a transgression. For three days, they discussed love relationships, bodies, and clothing. “It shocked her that we, in Europe, have so much freedom on these subjects”, Florine recalls. At equal age, two worlds face each other. Still, staying with locals opens a window into intimacy, but within a normal framework. Even in the house, a certain “level of decorum” is necessary.

The goal, when I visit locals, is to share a moment around cooking

Claire, content creator

For Claire Deries, a 28-year-old content creator, staying with locals is not about the number of nights spent but about the recipes shared in the kitchens where she is invited. Her concept: “cook with locals”, especially in Morocco and Algeria – where her community follows her massively. Subscribers recognize her on the street, invite her into their homes, suggest preparing a traditional dish together, and sometimes, the evening extends into a night on the family couch. “It pleases them, it pleases me, and it allows me to enter the interior of the culture rather than just observing it”, she summarizes.

In Algeria, she travels for twenty days without a fixed itinerary, with only the certainty of her departure and arrival cities. During the trip, she only sleeps “three or four nights in a hotel”, spending the rest of the time with subscribers who feed her, accommodate her, and show her around their city. The context, highly monitored for foreigners, sometimes leads her to refrain from mentioning in her videos that she stayed with them, as some hosts have reminded her not to declare a foreigner.

Lifestyles destined to disappear

In Asia, her experience changes in scale and nature. In Vietnam, Indonesia, or Malaysia, she lives with isolated ethnic groups, like the Iban of Borneo, in houses lost in the heart of the jungle, accessible after a series of boats, canoes, and hours of walking. No more Instagram community here: it requires a guide-interpreter, a budget – “400 euros for two days”, negotiated on WhatsApp – and acceptance of a lifestyle where the daily priority is simply to find something to eat.

This immersion allows her to see the fragility of these cultures. “In several countries, public policies encourage these populations to leave the forest, get papers, and move closer to cities – especially the youth, forced to travel long hours to go to school. These are lifestyles doomed to disappear,” explains Claire, for whom paying for her stay and filming these families becomes a way to contribute – modestly – to the survival of these communities.

Biking on the roads of Eastern Europe

For Cécile Jugan and Jérôme Zimmermann, special education trainers from Alsace, the experience begins in Europe. By bike, they cross Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine before the war. The ritual is almost always the same: in the late afternoon, the couple looks for a corner of a garden to pitch their tent and asks for permission to settle in for the night. “Most of the time, it ends up at their place.” In Poland, they don’t even need to ask for permission: “you just come to fill your water bottle, two hours later you are at the table with them and sleeping in their room,” smiles Cécile.

In these sometimes waterless countryside areas, hospitality is marked by religion and custom. They stayed with the village priest, shared meals sprinkled with schnapps in the early morning, and were offered the guest room while the hosts settled on the couch. “We were almost part of the family for a few hours,” they confess. Hospitality is perceived as a moral duty, an almost honor, rather than a service provided.

How they are viewed differs depending on the mode of travel. “When you have cycled from France to cover 5,000 km, people naturally see you differently,” explains Jérôme. Physical effort inspires respect and curiosity, where a plane ride may just lead to the image of a solvent tourist. This perspective helps put into context the fears often mentioned before their departure. “We were told: you are going to Eastern countries, it’s dangerous,” Jérôme recalls. “On the contrary, we only met incredibly welcoming people.” An unexpected hospitality that will remain one of the most memorable aspects of their journey.

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