Even the members of Esperanto Nederland were hoping to draw new people to their cause. ‘First off we want to let people know we exist!’ said Ronaldo Nobel. ‘Then, we want to show them the egalitarian aspect of Esperanto and that we have our own version of couch-surfing!’

Read more at DutchNews.nl

By the way, has anyone had a bad experience with couch-surfing or with passporta servo?

Well! I was at this on the Sunday (had to work on Saturday). I live in Utrecht, so it was easy to get to. I went to some of the talks and a few workshops. The Esperanto representative for my area apparently lives in Zeist (quite near me), but I didn't meet him. In fact, I didn't have all that much time to see enough of it; the Jaarbeurs is quite large.

Couch surfing is pretty big here now. In 2013 I hosted a girl from Taiwan and took her to a fancy dress party. She seemed to click with a friend of mine and they disappeared somewhere. The next day she spent the night on his couch, I assume (*shifty eyes look*).

You might say I had a bad experience with the Pasporta Servo this summer - as in, no experience.

I was travelling to a certain European city with a large Esperanto presence for a summer volunteer gig. I noticed that on the Servo website there were 20+ EO-speakers from that city listed as hosts, so I decided this would be a good opportunity to extend my stay and do some couch-surfing.

So I contacted a few people and waited for a few days. Nobody replied. I contacted a few more people, no answers. Eventually I gave up and just booked a hostel for the spare days. Finally one person replied, in broken Esperanto, to say he was busy and couldn't host people anymore.

So, not a horror story - but rather disappointing. (The hostels were OK, at least.) Has anyone had better success with the online Pasporta Servo? I'm disinclined to try it again - it was like talking to dead air ...