Informal Diplomats

The Online Guide and Consultation Service For Host Travel

Contents

1. What Is Host Travel and Why Would You Do It?

2. Is Host Travel Such A New Thing?

3. Is It Safe? Believe It Or Not...

4. There Are Problems, But Not What You Might Expect

5. Sample Pages From The Guide To Host Travel

6. How To Get & Benefit Most From A Consultation

7. About the Founder of Informal Diplomats

8. Links to Host Travel Resources and Testimonials

What is Host Travel!?
Host Travel is a style of travel by which you stay and/or meet with local people, eat their food, take their transport, and participate in their lives!

But what makes that different from…
Mass Tourism? You are not in an air conditioned bus with mostly other foreigners led by a tour guide transporting you from site to site and living as you otherwise would in your home country.

Backpacking? You are not lodging in some ghetto hostel or budget hotel with a bunch of other foreign drunk or drifting backpackers overlanding on the cheap.

Volunteering? You are not committed or expected to stay in one place for an extended period with the idea of transforming the community for a non-profit organization.

Why would you do host travel?
I have found host travel offers a more interactive and memorable experience of a country than other styles of travel I have experienced. In a world where our interaction with other people, especially in other countries, is increasingly mediated by internet, television, and telephone, I believe this is a wonderful way to build international friendships, intercultural understanding, and world peace. In all such host travel organizations, you will find them tied together by the universal idea that we are informal diplomats strengthening our connection to the rest of humanity in a way that national governments, private corporations, and bureaucratic NGOs have failed to do. And if you value non-commercial human interaction with real people, you shall certainly find it more exciting and fun than any other style of travel!

Many people mistakenly see this style of traveling as a way of saving money, because often they do not have to pay for accommodation or food. If you do this type of tourism properly you often do not save so much money as you imagine and you certainly spend a lot more time and energy than if you took more beaten paths. Consequently, I have met few people who see host travel as a way to save money ever try it or stick with it--but if you do, you learn the priceless value of what you gain from this travel is far greater than what you might save financially! 

Is Host Travel a new thing?
Of course not. For a centuries hospitality has been offered by kind locals to foreign strangers. However, after World War II, a conscientious objector Bob Luitweiler had the idea of preventing more wars and holocausts by assisting concerned people to meet and learn about each other. The Peacebuilders team expanded a network of volunteers willing to offer hospitality throughout Western Europe which later inspired individuals in other countries print up lists of hosts and start their own national branches of the international organization.. Women Welcome World Wide (more than 3000 members in 70 countries) , founded by Frances Alexander in High Wycombe, UK in 1984, developed as another such network to make Host Travel safe for women. However, not until the spread of email, internet, and mobile phone technology begin to stretch to every corner of the planet. In the past 5 years, hosts from nearly every country have signed up to Hospitality Club (www.hospitalityclub.org), The Couchsurfing Project (www.couchsurfing.com), and Globalfreeloaders (www.globalfreeloaders.com), much looser online networks of hosts. Eventually, wherever you go, you will be able to find at least one host before you set foot in the country!

Is This Safe?
”If I were you,” a Hospitality Club host in London who had traveled through most of the world told me, “I would not stay with strange people off the internet in Africa—because every time I go to Africa I get robbed.”
”If it is dangerous, then let me be the one to prove how dangerous it is, and at least enjoy it until it goes bad,” was my answer to this, and went on to stay and meet with over 100 hosts in Africa—only having a significant problem with one. The benefits of advice, attention, and caretaking I receive from my hosts made me feel much safer than if I were staying on my own at any commercial establishment. The following are just some of the advantages of host travel:

• You come much closer to how people really live--the food they eat, the transport they take, and traditions they celebrate...and understand more deeply their daily life, dreams, and struggles.
• They are almost always watchful of your well-being than you could ever be, telling where to go and where not to go...
• When you become sick, you are much more fortunate to be staying in the home of a family or host who cares about you than alone in some hotel or hostel at the mercy of some private clinic.

Of Course There Can Be Problems…
Organizations like Servas International are very established, formal, and organized, with things like annual membership payments, letters of introduction that become your organization passport, a complaint procedure to deal with problems, and even letters of recommendation and an interview required by some countries to be accepted--but even they have occasionally had problems in the past! The new web based networks are much looser, though they have security mechanisms such as verification procedures and passport checks. Still, they could conceivably be abused by anybody from missionaries and tour guides to perverts and NGO rackets looking for volunteers. Many look to the founders or some authority when governance in these networks is also decentralized, requiring everyone to take a part in it: In all of them members can issue positive or negative comments about those hosts or travelers they had a good or bad experience with, which are as good an indicator as any of how trustworthy a host or traveler is.

Of course, from my extensive experience with such type of travel, I can tell you there are problems that can cause hosts and travelers lost of time, money and energy —though they are not what you might expect:
Some examples:

• A host kindly waits with their guest for your departure at the train station, a police officer comes up to him and accuses him of being a false tour guide, and though the guest, he, and an official tour guide say this is not the case, the host is arrested and accosted away!
• At a small village after a terrorist attack, the host puts their guest up in a hotel because otherwise he must register you at the local police station or pay a fine!
• A guest and host comes back to a home to find that somebody has broken in and robbed them (but strangely stole nothing)--now what are you going to do?
  

From travelling between hosts extensively in Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia, I have run into many different types of problems I had not expected to have, but which could have been avoidable if I was aware of what they would be. In most cases, the bottom line, so easy to forget when you are freely travelling, is that you are big liability and/or responsibility to your host and so it is best to understand how you can minimize inconvenience and problems for them and yourself.

Hence, though I did not ever think of myself as being a travel consultant, in the past year many interested in host travel have been sending me messages asking, “How do you do this? Would it be safe for my mother to go to Kenya? Would you recommend a woman going to West Africa with her partner? Who is safe to stay with?” Many questions are very vague, as if also asking ‘what should I ask?’” Overwhelmed by so many messages and yet recognizing that I could offer a service not given by any traditional tourist agency or travel guide book, I have created this consulting company—Informal Diplomats-- specializing advising visitors in host travel. I believe such richer consultations than what I would send off by my good will can help others avoid potential problems that can arise with host travel and make their visits even more enjoyable and meaningful. By assisting people to participate and experience host travel, I hope to expand participation in host travel organizations and fulfillment of their goals of internationally networking people and places, creating educational exchanges, helping people to experience other's lives, fostering intercultural understanding, spreading tolerance, and promoting a more just and peaceful world, .

My Guidebook(s) to Host Travel

While many are requesting individual consultation from me on the host travel experiences they anticipate, if such advice is in high demand, I realize I might as well write a book about it based upon my past experiences to standardize this information. As I have had different experiences doing this in different areas of the world, I shall write one general book comparing host travel in developed and developing countries, and then later others focusing on particular continents.

Included in my book are many ways both hosts and guests can benefit from each other interactions, such as:

• Maintaining communication and finding out how you can leave and return to the home.
• The value of helping out your host and playing with the kids!
• Minimizing intereference and increasing comfort in each other's often very different lives.
• Cooking your hosts and where to set the limits on what you can eat and drink!
• The proper manner of exchanging gifts (art, music, massage, cooking, all the material stuff too heavy to carry around anyway!)

Later you can order the self-published book from me in its entirety for $5, but for a limited time offer I am offering free sample chapters for anybody who is interested in reading any of the book's topics listed below and providing me with feedback for further editing and revision over the next two years. So email me and request the chapter before Lonely Planet or any other publisher you might recommend gets interested.

Introduction: Traveling Through People’s Lives (Why I Have Written This Book)
Part I: Evaluating Host Travel
Chapter 1: Is Host Travel For You?...2
Chapter 2: The Benefits of Host Travel...2
Chapter 3: The Problems of Host Travel....5
Part II: Making Host Travel Happen....9
Chapter 4: Choosing and Reaching A Host...9
Chapter 5: Connecting and Meeting With A Host...14
Chapter 6: Passing Through the Open Door and Settling in...16
Chapter 7: Figuring out the Daily Schedule With Day and Night Hosts...20
Chapter 8: The Importance of Exchanging Gifts--Making Travel Non-Commercial...21
Chapter 9: Shall I stay or Shall I Go? When To Say Goodbye...24
Part III: The Limits To Going Native...25
Chapter 10: I No Understand: Language Barriers...25
Chapter 11: What Is That? To Eat Or Not To Eat It...27
Chapter 12: To Adapt or Retreat From Climatic And Environmental Extremes...28
Chapter 13: Resources-The Home of a Host As An InternationalEcological Microcosm...29
Chapter 14: Getting Around Town With the Locals...31
Chapter 15: In the Most Caring Hands, Becoming Sick While Staying With Hosts...32
Part IV: The Deep Discussions...33
Chapter 16: The Cross You Must Bear: Your Citizenship...34
Chapter 17: Understanding Different World Views, Value Systems, and Lifestyles...35
Chapter 18: The Three “Forbidden” Subjects: Politics/Economics, Gender Relations/Sexuality, Religion/Spirituality...37
Conclusion: What Informal Diplomacy Means For Humanity and the World...40

How Can You Get A Private Consultation and Make the Most of It?
Since this is a new project (and I suppose a new market as well), I am offering consultations at a rate low enough ($10/per consultation) to simply maintain the costs of the site until I can see how much of a success this will be. If people show a great enough interest, I shall expand its services by finding other consulting partners and raising the rates.

To receive a consultation, please submit a small payment of $10 via the PalPay button below and I shall receive a verification by email and respond within a week. Please do not send me a requests for consultation expecting me to respond immediately because often I am traveling to expand this website and my book and may be unable to reach the internet at times.

Benefiting From Your Private Consultation:
I can offer more specific advice on what you might encounter during your host travel experience if you give me more specific questions about what you wish to know. Usually the person seeking advice informs me of the gender of the traveler, their destination, and the season. Keep in mind that while I may be able to offer advice on matters such as visas, sites to see, and transportation, you have plenty of more established information sources for these questions, such as Lonely Planet, Rough Guide and Let’s Go guide books.

To make the most out of your consultation, I highly advise you also include whatever other information you might believe to be important to staying with strange people from the internet: For example, I am a health practitioner who has worked with disabled people and major medical problems so I know that in certain circumstances where a lack of facilities or infrastructure may make travel difficult for some people. Also, I would be more careful on advising my grandmother about making such a trip, even though she travels quite a lot. If I can identify you by your profile on a Host Travel organizations such as Hospitality Club and The Couchsurfing Project or you can send me your Servas Letter of Introduction, this may supply me with information you do not need to give me. When preparing your message for consultation therefore, take some time and thought into composing it so I can advise you according to the best of my expertise.

I hope I can help to make your experience with Host Travel safer and more enjoyable

Note: All credit card transactions are through Palpal with a Secure Socket Layer (SSL). From here you can easily make the deposit into my account.

About The Founder

After spending four years learning about the world through concepts, models, and theories in books at the university, Jacob Thomas decided to design his own course of studying the real world. After spending a summer staying with ad-hoc hosts in Mexico, he spent a year abroad travelling with Servas International throughout every country of Europe, deciding this was truly the way I loved to travel, and wishing to make it more viable for others so they could experience its rewards. He revisited Turkey, Russia, Britain and Italy with Hospitality Club, and since has also used the Couchsurfing Project and Global Freeloaders to travel through most of Africa, which gave him the basis to understanding of how Host Travel could (and could not) work in poorer countries. He is now traveling through Latin America, Oceania and Asia. He hopes that with this website his experiences can be of greater benefit to anyone interested in travelling this way.

Host Travel Links:
www.servas.org: Founded by Bob Luitweiler, Servas International (15,000 members) is the most established and long running hospitality networks. Allowing you to stay with a night hosts for two nights (unless invited to stay longer) or visit them during the day, it is predominately most functional in the relatively democratic and developed countries. While each country branch has its own guidelines for membership, they tend to have higher requirements (letter of introduction, a membership fee, paper-only host lists, and even letters of recommendations) than other Host Travel networks, and so tend to be favored by older hosts. Due to this, unlike most web based networks which have many inactive members, most people in Servas participate if they can. Servas International is a UN registered organization with annual elections for its board and a complaint procedure, so it is a very safe and welcoming introduction to Host Travel..

www.hospitalityclub.org: Started by Veit and other hitchkikers in East Germany in 2001, Hospitality Club (90,000 members in 190 countries (depending on what you call a country)) seems to have the most extensive online network of hosts and travellers yet. You simply set up a profile here and then can peruse the profiles of others travelling or hosting in the network. Their security mechanism is based on name and passport checks, comments posted about how trustworthy the host is, and an administration that handles complaints and filters spam as all messages must be sent through the site. You do not have to reveal any information about yourself such as your telephone number or address, and yet you can..

www.couchsurfing.com The Couchsurfing Project website (40,000 members) started by Casey Fenton in 2003 and made public in 2004 has a very nice and sleek design with more photos of members than you have time to see. Security here is based on another couchsurfing member vouching that you are trustworthy, verification by payment of a small fee to help finance the operation, a network of friends and comments in the network, and governance by CS designated ambassadors and administrators. With exception of a few email addresses offered, most messages are sent through the system and very little personal information is revealed.

www.globalfreeloaders.com: In Globalfreeloaders website the traveler puts in where you want to stay and for what days, and the system gives you the names and emails of hosts that are available at that time and place. You can testify to a host's or traveler's trustworthiness by writing a testimonial on their profile. The emphasis seems to be more on the accommodation than in people meeting with common ideals or interests since much of this information is not provided, so the type of people you are staying iwth is much more unpredictable. Yet you can probably obtain this information by contacting them and have just as a rewarding experience.

Sylvain Gang From Switzerland With Hosts In Montevideo, Uruguay