Working as a street vendor in Italy
This is definitely an enviable journey. Starting on October 1st of last year and continuing to this day, the trip is still ongoing.
The protagonist is a Hangzhou girl known online as Jing Xiaoyu. Alone, dragging her suitcase, packed with 500 postcards made from her own photography works, along with a small rice cooker and a quilt, she embarked on a fantastical drift across Italy.
She said that this journey wasn’t overly planned in advance, nor did it have a clear destination. It was more about going with the flow and adapting to circumstances. “Those seemingly incredible dreams actually come from every step you take.”
This novice traveler has a poor sense of direction and only average foreign language skills
Jing Xiaoyu, born in 1984, is a native of Hangzhou. She graduated with a master’s degree in photography and is currently a freelancer.
When the reporter contacted Xiaoyu via WeChat at 2 PM Italian time (7 AM), she had just woken up and was preparing to take a bus to see Mount Etna (Europe’s highest active volcano, located on the eastern coast of Sicily, Italy).
“Traveling itself is actually a very personal thing. It doesn’t need to be loaded with too much meaning, nor does it necessarily solve any problems. You can go whenever you want and stop whenever you want. Most travel problems are solved before you even set off—maybe the biggest problem is whether you have the courage to face all the various issues you might encounter along the way.” This is a line from Xiaoyu’s travel diary posted online.
On October 4th, 2012, Xiaoyu set off with money borrowed from her aunt and uncle, dragging a half-person-tall suitcase. Inside were a few changes of clothes, 500 postcards, a small rice cooker, a quilt, and a tripod. She also carried her beloved DSLR camera and a compact point-and-shoot camera, embarking on a journey abroad.
No guidebook—just a full dose of courage.
“Many people don’t believe this is my first time leaving the country,” Xiaoyu said. “As for a sense of direction, I’m hopeless—I rely on phone navigation apps no matter where I go. As for language, I only know some basic English, and my Italian is even worse. As for cooking, I can just boil vegetables. I brought the rice cooker purely to save money.”
But none of this affected Xiaoyu’s trip in the slightest. In every place she went, she would visit the most beautiful scenery and also explore local supermarkets. Sometimes she bought groceries and cooked herself, other times she shared various Italian delicacies at locals’ homes.
As a result, her expenses were quite low. Excluding airfare, her spending from October to the end of December was less than 5,000 yuan.
Many people might find this hard to believe—how could it be so cheap?
Actually, for a “couchsurfer,” it’s entirely possible.
“Couchsurfing” made her drifting journey possible
What is a couchsurfer?
“Couchsurfer,” literally meaning “sleeping on someone else’s couch,” comes from a global hospitality exchange website called Couchsurfing. This form of travel involves friends or online acquaintances in different locations communicating via the internet, offering their couch or spare bed to travelers. Travelers stay with their hosts free of charge, and sometimes hosts even provide meals and guided tours. It’s a process of making friends while traveling. This travel style is novel and budget-friendly. Though conditions can sometimes be tough, it enables countless dreamers to explore the world.
Xiaoyu’s couchsurfing journey wasn’t complicated in procedure. First, register with real-name verification on a couchsurfing website and create a complete personal profile. Then determine your travel destination, look for local hosts, and send them an email requesting a “couch.” Based on their replies, finalize your itinerary.
Xiaoyu said that finding a suitable “couch” isn’t actually easy. On the Couchsurfing website, she sent out 101 emails to hosts in Florence and only received a dozen responses, with just two hosts agreeing to accommodate her.
After finding her first couch in Italy, Xiaoyu finally felt at ease, and continued searching for more “couches” as she traveled. From October to December 2012, she stayed on 16 “couches” in 12 different places. “In Florence, the couch allowed me to lie down and see the stars through the skylight; in Siena, the couch was made by pushing together two single sofas; in Cagliari, the capital of Sardinia, the first couch was on a German captain’s private yacht, the second was in a studio that looked like a museum, and the third was in an old downtown apartment belonging to a big, friendly photographer.”
The people and stories encountered along the journey
Besides being a couchsurfer, Xiaoyu also took on the role of a street vendor, selling the 500 postcards made from her photography works. “It helps ease the financial pressure and also lets more people share the stories behind these photos.”
During the trip, Xiaoyu always met interesting people. In Florence, her elderly hostess would bring her coffee every day; on the night of the supposed “end of the world” in Sardinia, over 50 people threw a party at their host’s home; she even gave a Chinese lesson to a group of Italians, talking until her voice went hoarse… Facing different strangers every day—was she scared? Xiaoyu smiled: “I’m lucky. 99% of the people I met were kind.”
Originally, Xiaoyu only planned to stay in Italy for 120 days, just in time to return home for Chinese New Year. But as she traveled, one appealing destination led to another, and one warm-hearted host after another appeared. “So I decided to stay until the last day of my visa—150 days in total—and return to Hangzhou around March.”
Before setting off, Xiaoyu’s mother worried, “How can this girl, who can barely take care of herself, go out and explore the world?” But every day during the trip, Xiaoyu would check in with her mom via QQ. “After all this time, my mom finally felt at ease with me.”
If you also want to be a couchsurfer or learn more about Jing Xiaoyu’s story, you can follow “Jing Xiaoyu” on Sina Weibo. Xiaoyu said she’s happy to share travel tips with everyone. She’ll also tell you what safety precautions to take when couchsurfing.