Hi everyone, I'm Jacob! 👋

I lived in Washington DC for 4 years before quitting my job to travel full time for 2 years! I finished that trip in Nov 2023 and then bought a house in my hometown and now travel ~6 months per year. I'm excited to host if any surfers ever visit my small town. 😅

I love travel immersion - meeting locals, learning languages, and understanding cultures. For this, I always travel slowly overland by hitchhiking or public transport and use CS whenever I can. 👍

I usually travel with my amazing wife Mackenzie, but sometimes I'm solo. Her profile is here: https://couchsurfing.page.link/Pc1xJcupdopPYTbo7

Interests

• cooking
• coffee
• reading
• traveling
• geopolitics
• history
• languages
• religion
• food
• nature
• football
• trekking

Music, Movies, and Books

BOOKS
I try to read a book from every country I visit, so I'm always open to suggestions. I love historical fiction. Some favorite authors are John Steinbeck, Khaled Hosseini, and Gabriel García Márquez.

MUSIC and MOVIES
I'm not a huge music or film guy, though I'm always up to hear your favorite local band or relax on a Friday night to a good movie.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

If I have to choose one, it's quitting our good corporate jobs to travel like broke backpackers for 2 years.

But, some favorite travel experiences:

- Hitchhiking 6000km across Arabia including camping in the desert and attending a wedding between cousins.
- Cruising through the Galapagos, swimming with sea turtles and sea lions
- Canoeing the Amazon for five days, finding 5m long anacondas and rare pink river dolphins
- Flying in a helicopter over an erupting volcano in Hawaii
- Hitchhiking through Tibet with Buddhist monks to monasteries and holy waterfalls and witnessing a sacred sky burial
- Hiking to a remote section of the Great Wall of China, finding a tower to sleep in, then waking up to the best sunrise ever
- Living with Orthodox monks on the holy Mount Athos for four days
- Witnessing an epic game of kok boru high on Tajikistan's Pamir Plateau (it's like horseback capture the flag but the flag is a dead goat)
- Attending the sacred Jamaya festival in Iraq alongside thousands of Yazidis
- Experiencing a birth celebration with the Kalash people deep in the Hindu Kush mountains along the border with Afghanistan

Teach, Learn, Share

Teach: English, programming, budget travel, cultures around the world.

Learn: Must-try local food, some phrases in your language, and anything else you're interested in.

Share: Anything about our complicated country (USA) - whatever you want to know, we have an opinion! Plus tons of travel stories and tips.

What I Can Share with Hosts

Lots of discussion, cleaning, cooking, travel tips and stories.

Countries I’ve Visited

Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United States, Uzbekistan, Vatican City State, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Sweden, United States