Meet Nadia

Nadia has been my neighbour for the past few weeks and is on her 8th month of traveling.  Lately she has been having some down time, a break from carrying the back pack here and there and  also taking time to figure out her next step.
Nadia travelled extensively in Europe and found the Hospitality Club http://www.hospitalityclub.org/
a great resource for people to stay with. Hospitality Club is the original official couch surfing web site and she has only glowing reports about the people she had met  and stayed with through this site. As many of you may know traveling alone can be a tough and lonely at times and if your a woman then even more trying in certain places and cultures. So Nadia found that living with a local person was a great way to not only see he sites but not be in the tourist trap; she got to see how the locals live. Not only is it a  cheap way to travel  but Nadia found that  the hosts themselves are people who have travelled, or are interested to travel  but because of work or family commitments can't at present leave home. Her hosts enjoyed the company of a person from a different culture being in their home and she feels that there was a true cultural exchange which both parties enjoyed; it is not just the case of the traveller getting cheap accommodation.

After a trip around Indian with a friend, Nadia has decided to do some volunteer work. For days, over Christmas she sat with the computer on her hut balcony figuring out which NGO, charity or organization to get involved with. These days there are a lot of organization that offer a volunteer experience but you have to pay to work. So sifting  through a plethora of website can  take time and be very frustrating.  One organizations asked for $250 per week to volunteer. Now that is just ludicrous considering how cheap India can be on basic food and accommodation. Anyway she has settled on working with  International Cultural Alliance,    http://www.ica-india.org
They have various projects and Nadia will be going to Bangalore to work in the Women's Community Development and teaching programs. So well done to Nadia and thanks for being a great friend and neighbour over Christmas 2012.