NYC: When Couchsurfing goes wrong

Check out the Irish Times online for an article about the potential downsides of Couchsurfing. Their writer certainly didn't get a very warm reception from his NYC hosts, a couple who seemed to be in the midst of their own relationship meltdown.

I empathise with the writer although I do think there are some lessons to be learnt on both sides here. Here are some tips for all couchsurfers to keep in mind.

1. Do not presume you will always get a front door key to your host's home. In London, I don't offer guests a key. This is because I have housemates and, even if I deem a person trustworthy, I don't feel it is up to me to make that decision on their behalf too. However, I do make this clear on my profile and it was certainly bad form of these NYC hosts to wait until the morning to tell their guests that they expect them to vacate the building when they go to work.

2. Select your host wisely. If you're on a short city break, where your host can make or break your whole experience, it pays to do a bit more research than you would if you were on a schedule-free round-the-world trip, where you can change plans and move on the next day if necessary. Exchange a few emails with your host in advance to build up an idea of the sort of reception you might get on arrival.

3. I imagine the Irish Times writer would have been a lot more tolerant if his hosts hadn't been so frosty, however, you can't complain if a New York City apartment is cramped. It probably feels the same for your hosts too, and yet they've agreed to share it with you.

4. If it's that bad, move on. Granted, that's not so easy in New York, where hotel rooms and couches are in high demand. However, if it's got to the point where you are "escaping" your hosts and dread even thinking about them, then spending a few minutes to send a couple of mails to some alternative hosts is surely worth a try. The hugely active NYC forum has a sub-group for last-min couch requests.

5. Finally, and most importantly: the golden rule. Couchsurfing always works better if you socialise with your hosts and don't just use it as a place to crash.

Globetrotters in Harlem: the case of 'ghetto' tourism

Do tourists visit Harlem merely to gawp at poor, black people? The following is an extract from an article on the Guardian's Comment is Free site by a Harlem resident, Lola Adesioye.

"I'm still struggling to get to grips with tourists' fascination with coming into a poor area, one still considered by many to be a "ghetto", just to watch black people eat, worship and generally go about their daily lives - as if deprivation is somehow interesting and the way in which black people socialise really is so different from other Americans."

Just as India has "slum tours", Brazil offers the "favela experience" and South Africa serves up township "poorism", now Harlem is the must-see place to get down with, and get photos of, people less privileged than yourself.

Or is it?

As some of the blog respondents point out, isn't the Afro-American heritage likely to be more of a draw than poverty? I think many residents would be rather unhappy slotting modern Harlem into the slum/favela/township category.

One blog respondent, Raz, says:

I intend to visit Harlem on my next visit to NYC. Not to gawp at poor people but because it's another part of the jigsaw of a fascinating city. I'm not sure that you can live in an historical neighborhood and not expect tourists. Lola, I'm sure you've visited Chinatown. How did you feel about that?

I'd have to agree with Raz. As a home of jazz music, soul-food restaurants, gospel churches, historical sites and hip-hop, Harlem has all the hallmarks of a tourist attraction.

Two years ago, I went on a hip-hop tour of Harlem (tour guide Grandmaster Caz, pictured above). Admittedly, it was a group tour on bus, which is never my favourite form of tourism, but I did it to get to know another one of the city's neighbourhoods and learn about the origins of a genre of music that became part of my own youth on the other side of the Atlantic. I certainly didn't do it to get my fix of "deprivation"; my motivations were no different from doing a Bob Dylan tour of Greenwich Village.

Back to the idea of poorism or favela tourism, it's never going to be simple right/wrong, black/white case. Each experience depends on the individual tourist's attitude, as Lola concedes. If the alternative is to visit all other neighbourhoods and ignore the so-called "black areas", I can't see that this would be preferable.

Admittedly, bus tours aren't ideal and seem to jar with something as personal as church worship (Harlem church trips are very popular among tourists), but it is up to the congregations to decide whether to accept this or not. Meanwhile, tour guides are in the ideal position to breakdown inevitable preconceptions.

The best advice from Lola comes in her parting words. "I'd encourage anyone coming to Harlem to get off the bus, sit in a bar or café and talk to some locals." Travel networking anyone?