CURRENT MISSION

Looking forward to hosting again on cs!

Going back to a sedentary life, something I was not longer used to for quite a while.

------VERY IMPORTANT------
If you're considering to stay with me.. Please read all my profile before sending me a couch request. In particular, please read the conditions that I listed in "My Home" section.

If you're sending an inappropriate request, don't expect an appropriate reply from me. I'm very tired of taking my time to answer properly. I used to reply carefully to each request (especially the bad ones, giving tips and feedbacks), but what I got back it's been that only 15% of the people to whom I answered wrote me back something.

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I've been away from home for the last three years, living for a year in China, then traveling for more than a year around Asia and spending few months in Costa Rica, eventually going back to travel in East Asia. Since last winter I'm again living in Milano.

ABOUT ME

Hello! My name is Niko, I'm Italian and Bulgarian and my hometown is Milan, Italy. I've joined the Couchsurfing community because I'm always looking forward to make new experiences, meet different people, learn from them and participate in cultural exchanges.

I'm a perfectionist, a lazy guy, that sometimes has nice ideas.
Probably my teachers would say I'm brilliant but inconstant and my bosses would say I'm a very reliable and willing person.
My friends would likely say that I have an altruistic soul and spend a lot of energies for the others.
My family.. well that's too much to write here.

I think that it's easier to describe a person talking about what (s)he likes to do, instead of only picking adjectives. I like to walk around new places, talk to the people that live them. I like to explore the wonders of nature as well as the city streets. I spend a lot of time admiring maps or reading history stuff, but I'm not a good student. I like to hang out with my old and new friends, better if over a good wine or beer, a good pasta or pizza.

Anyway, I guess people would describe me as a sociable person. I'm sure that it happens when I make a good connection with the other. I love to hear others stories, it's my favorite way of learning. I feel really connected to human nature when I'm listening to a person talking about what (s)he cares of.

PHILOSOPHY

I believe that a lot of things in this world need an urgent change and we have to start changes changing ourselves, our lifestyles. A great quality which is very important now, is the ability to give up. Give up with what is not very important to our lives, a lot of material things for instance. Learn to live simple. But I also believe that it's very important to laugh as often as possible, sometimes an "I don't give a damn" is worth thousand words.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I believe that contemporary people are facing big changes at an unprecedented pace. They must adapt to a world where connections with other human beings are multiplying constantly. In order to do that peacefully, they must become open-minded and open-hearted, tolerant and unselfish as never before.

Unfortunately many prefer to look at their past, stuck onto what is supposed to be well known and easy to categorize.
Sharing more and more nowadays is inevitable and tools like couchsurfing (BeWelcome and Trustroots) help a lot to improve peaceful and meaningful connections between us. 

My best travel experiences were made possible by meeting local people, enjoying wonderful hospitality and openness. Anytime this happens I feel more connected to mankind, alive and happy. I like the idea of contributing to multiply the chances of encounters among human beings. Hosting, surfing, meeting and organizing events are a great way to do it. I support the "sharing economy".

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Usually I don't have a couch to offer, since I share an apartment with my uncle and my grandma, but sometimes during summer it could happen that I have a place all for me. Then I would be happy to offer a place to stay to csers.

Anyway, I'm surfing when I'm traveling and I try to encourage and participate to different cs events wherever I go.

I could be available to hangout with csers, as well as to spend time showing them around my city.

Please feel free to kindly contact me if you need any kind of infos, advice about Milano, Italy or whatever you can't find through an online search. I would be happy to help you.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE 

It's been already three years since my first cs experience (November 2016 in Uzbekistan). Since then I've surfed more than a dozen times and participated to some events, nearly all in Asia. Except for one, all experiences have been interesting, most of them excellent, some just good. Last year I had my first experiences as a host, all have been great. I could even host some cs friends who had hosted me before.

P.s. Please write the secret phrase in your couch request (I wanna be sure that you read my profile before sending a request), you can find it at the beginning of "My Home" section.

Interests

Travel, music, languages, geography, calisthenics, hitchhiking, people's fights for freedom around the world and alternative ecological ways of life. These are the main fields where I like to put my energies. I also love to meet people, it's my first source of inspiration. 

Lately I'm mostly interested into: playing music (guitar and sax); reading geography and geopolitics stuff; learning about travel blogging.
Regarding especially the last one, I've just started to write some material about my recent 400 day trip around Asia and I'm looking forward to learn how to create and maintain a blog, hoping to soon launch my own travel blog (see below for some pages about my trip).

I'm really interested in learning more about tourism as a phenomenon, after having experienced it as a traveler.
Travel has already become a fundamental part of my life. I'm very much into low-budget travel and I'm a very passionate hitchhiker.

• writing
• traveling
• blogging
• jazz
• rock music
• guitar
• hiking
• camping
• geography
• geopolitics
• history
• languages
• tourism
• hitchhiking
• road trips
• budget travel
• chinese
• trekking
• china
• calisthenics
• silk road
• punk
• saxophone

Music, Movies, and Books

Cannonball Adderley, RATM, SLF, Violent Femmes, Soundgarden, Audioslave, Ramones, Minor Threat, The Smashing Pumpkins, Dead Kennedys, Radiohead, Fat Freddie's Drop, Thievery Corporation and many more...
Jurassic Park, In the Name of the Father, Nueve Reinas, El Secreto de sus ojos, The Departed, Rocco e i suoi fratelli, The Matrix, Leningrad Cowboys Go America and many more...
Kapuscinski, Kerouac, Scerbanenco, M. Richler, J. Rubin, Conrad, Bukowski. J.D. Salinger and many more...

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I've felt amazed when my friends and I transformed with our own hands an abandoned building into a wonderful gym for training calisthenics and more. We opened it to the public for a small monthly fee just to cover the maintenance expenses and it worked well! It went on for three years.

Here is some stuff related to it:
https://www.facebook.com/indoorcali

I've felt amazed many times throughout my 400 days of travel in Asia, a trip that was planned to last not longer than six months. The thing that amazed me the most, was the unbelievable hospitality that I received all along the trip.

You can check out some stories and photos here:
www.facebook.com/puravidaroad
www.instagram.com/outofcomfortblog

Teach, Learn, Share

I love music, any kind of. I play guitar and love to jam with others (but I'm rusty, out of practice). I would like to learn some saxophone.

Languages are my specialty and passion. I love to practice the ones I know with others, play with them, share my experience.
I can speak six languages: Italian and Bulgarian as a native speaker, I'm fluent in Spanish and English, I'm proficient in French and Chinese. This latter is the language on which I'm focusing the most lately, since I still have a lot to learn.

I have many stories about my recent trips that might be interesting for you, some being related to budget travel and hitchhiking.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Bulgaria, China, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macao, Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, Philippines, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan

Countries I’ve Lived In

China, Costa Rica, Italy