My name is Alvaro and I am from Spain. I left home in 2014 to escape the comfort; the stagnation of daily routine can only bring a series of cyclical experiences and constant repetition; the safety of boredom. I was anxious to get out to experience and put myself on the spot. I consider myself a friendly guy who says things straight, I don't like going around in circles or lying. I love animals and being out in nature.

My name is Jackie and I also love to travel. I come from a Mexican family but was born in California, United States. I have been living internationally since 2010, from the Philippines to Peru to Thailand to Taiwan. I am an open minded person who enjoys connecting with people and sharing life experiences. I believe that traveling is knowing, you can't sit there and be fed everything that you see on TV or hear on the news. My goal is to live and integrate myself in as many countries/cultures as I possibly can.

We quit our jobs in Manila at the end of September in 2015 and have since traveled around Europe and are now traveling around Asia. It has been a great experience so far and can't believe how fast the months pass by! We want to show people that you don't need a lot of money to travel and experience the world. We spend as little as possible and hitchhike as much as we can! This allows us to gain invaluable experience and friendships all around the world. We will keep traveling for as long and as far as our strength will take us:) We are so thankful for couchsurfing and hitchhiking especially because it has put us in a vulnerable place where it has given us the opportunity to meet wonderful people who we would otherwise never meet.

Alvaro and I are always eager to meet new people and throw ourselves into new experiences!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

We are on couchsurfing because the best way to really experience a place is through a local's perspective. We love that people here are so willing to offer their home and show others around. Our belief is that it is possible to live a life in constant movement without having a lot of money. Couchsurfing is a community that offers experiences and allows you to meet and connect with people all around the world that share similar values about travel and life but that also broaden your mind with their own world ideas.

Interests

Movies, reading, traveling, philosophy, extreme sports but most of all we enjoy eating, drinking and breathing

• arts
• reading
• music
• cinema
• nature
• tv series
• card games
• street photography

Music, Movies, and Books

Favorite movie directors:

The Holy Trinity: Andrei Tarkovsky, Ingmar Bergman and Carl Theodor Dreyer

and

Wes, Anderson, Alfred Hitchcock, Charles Chaplin, J.L. Godard or Hayao Miyazaki, John Ford, Don Hertzfeldt, Bela Tarr, David Lynch, Terrence Malick, Hong Sang-Soo, Wong Kar-Wai, Pedro Costa, Luis Buñuel, Jonas Mekas, Abbas Kiarostami, Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi, Yasuhiro Ozu, Eric Rohmer, John Cassavetes, Chris Marker, Victor Erice

Favorite books:
Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
Siddhartha / Demian / Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
The Odyssey by Homer
The Portrait of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Starmaker by Olaf Stapledon
Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Ulysses by James Joyce
Confederacy of Dunces by J. K. Toole
Rayuela by Julio Cortazar
Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
The Brothers Karamazov by Fiodor Dostoyevski
Chelkash and Other Stories by Maxim Gorki
Ubik / Blade Runner by Philip K. Dick
I Robot / Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
Extraordinary Stories by Edgar Allan Poe
Sofocles

Philosophy: Spinoza, Plato, Kierkegaard, Nietszche, Russell, Beauvoir, Wittgenstein, Sartre, Camus, Descartes, Kant, Rousseau, Voltaire, Marco Aurelio, Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch

Favorite Music:
Bach, David Bowie, Los Planetas, Beethoven, Paco de Lucia, Django Reinhardt, Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Charlie Feathers, Johnny Cash, Sixto Rodriguez, Pony Bravo, Silvio Rodriguez, Velvet Underground, Los Tigres del Norte, Radiohead, Iron and Wine, Goran Bregovic, Nina Simone, The Kinks, Nick Drake, Sigur Ros, Bill Withers, Leonard Cohen, The Who, Credence Clearwater Revival, Manel

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Being able to stand each other every day is pretty amazing haha.

We have been lucky enough to have many experiences. I don't think that we could keep up with this list but so far our favorites have been:

-Getting lost in the middle of the Philippine mountains trying to reach the amazing Whang Od to get tattooed in the traditional bamboo way

-Spending Christmas with the Dusun tribe at the bottom of Mount Kinabalu in Malaysia

-Living and volunteering in the Peruvian Andes

-Bungee jumping and skydiving in California, USA

-Wild camping in the Grand Canyon

-Road tripped the west coast of the USA to Canada

Teach, Learn, Share

Jacqueline: I enjoy teaching and learning languages.

Alvaro: By the way she is more into destroying the Spanish language with her Mexican slang than teaching it like Wey, Que onda, Orale nomas, y andale pues. Joke haha (not really).

Jacqueline: The Spanish, what more can I say...

What I Can Share with Hosts

We would love to share our knowledge and gratitude with everyone who shares their time with us just for the simple joy of sharing.

We can also practice some languages and cook some Mexican food.

Countries I’ve Visited

Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kosovo, Laos, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macao, Macedonia, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta, Mauritius, Moldova, Montenegro, Morocco, Myanmar, Netherlands, New Zealand, Oman, Panama, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Timor-Leste (East Timor), Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Vatican City State, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Austria, Georgia, Mexico, Peru, Philippines, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, United States, Viet Nam