Landing in Adelaide: How to Meet Strangers when Travelling?

The final morning of my fifth freezing day in Gold Coast, Stuart sent me off on the bus which took me to Coolangatta Airport. (note: this was back in August)

Two hours later, I was in Land of Wineries with Jessie waiting at the Airport for my arrival.




Okay, my impression on Adelaide, it felt like... Hull, England. Small town, friendly people, no tall buildings and rainy.




Adelaide is always raining and freezing cold in the winter. ALWAYS.

Brrrr... to think I was travelling south where it got colder and colder. GOD.

But thank god being in Australia, one of the highest chocolate consuming nations, there were always body warming bites around.




So Jessie and I popped by Hudson Coffee for a hot cuppa. They serve really good hot white chocolate.




That evening, I met up with Anne, my host in Adelaide.




Who was the first to teach me how to operate the most complicated bus ticket system I have ever seen.




There are so many types of tickets you can purchase: student fare, weekly fare, 10x fare; by the time I figured all out, I would have flown to Melbourne on Virgin Blue and back.

The very same day, I've also met up with another local, Bronwen (lady gym instructor *wink wink*), to arrange a road trip to the vineyards the next day.


cute Bronwen


Okay. Back to my original point. So how does one meet strangers, and get free stays, and free road trips in a foreign land?

I have exactly TWO answers for that.

1. Couchsurfing.com

It's one of my favourite sites. It's more useful than most travel info sites, because this site is the key to your free stay, free tour guide, free food (maybe, not guaranteed), and best of all, free friends!

Both Anne and Bronwen were my couch surfer friends. We've been in contact a month before I started my journey down under.

How it works is that you search for a couch surfer who has a couch (this can be a bed, a mattress, or.. well.. a couch) to spare for you to spend a few nights so you don't have to pull your budget on unnecessary "needs" like hotels.

Anne and housemate, Kitty, were two very lovely Adelaidians with a HUGE fat fluffy Persian that's to die for (which I cuddled to no ends every time I saw it), offered me their surprisingly very confortable couch in their very cosy house during my whole stay in Adelaide.


My uber comfy bed-like couch (pardon me, I looked haggard)


They even had a bit of dress-ups (Anne's housemate was selling Gothic clothings) with some of their friends.




Kitty even made us all dinner on my first night. My very first Australian home cooked food.


Very Cheesy Rissoto


Bronwen, on the other hand, also offered me a two single-bed room in her house, and because I accepted Anne's offer first, I turned her down but accepted her offer on a road trip to Barossa Valley the very next day. :D


re-using photo: Bronwen bringing us on a roadtrip


Who introduced me to Tobias, her couch surfer friend from Germany, who was also in town, but for business.







Who introduced me to Katharina, his couch surfer friend from Germany, who was also in town, for travelling.

Now we have a group of road trip buddies!


Tobias, Katharina, Bronwen, Jessie (from Malaysia) and Me (the one taking photo)


And it was only my first morning (second day) in Adelaide.


Soon it was champagne and strawberries all the way to the vineyard in the car.


Booze



Me



Plastic cups



Strawberries



Happy hour!


See. Who says you can't have fun travelling alone? There're friends to be made everywhere!


Now, my answer no. 2 to how to meet strangers when you're travelling.

2. Own a Blog

That has many friendly local/foreign readers that's residing/studying in foreign countries~!

Who will contact you when you're in town and then go for coffee together. :D

It's the most effective method. Some of the closest people I got to know were through my blog while travelling. :D




Jessie, don't kill me :p
I love you xoxo.