Where is it located?
Kyrgyzstan is a country in Central Asia and is sharing the border with Uzbekistan, China, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. The capital Bishkek is where most of the people live and it is located not too far away from the border with Kazakhstan.
Where to find hosts in the country?
When looking at Couchsurfing, there are only three places to really search for hosts in my opinion. Bishkek, Osh and Karakol about which article is going to be. Couchsurfing isn’t even big in these cities so finding hosts in smaller places is possible, but really hard. For that I would suggest just bringing camping equipment.
Is it easy finding a host in Karakol ?
Karakol is a little town at the Issyk-Kul, the biggest lake of the country. There is a road from Bishkek to there. Like usually in little towns there are not many hosts and in Karakol the same. We found a few there that were accepted by a lady with her kids.
What did I do with the hosts?
We were in the garden with the kids and had two chicks with us, who the kids almost killed, which wasn’t nice. The host basically was telling about what her plan was for upcoming couchsurfers to get some money through them. For example buying a horse, so they can pay, when they wanna ride it. Also the food, she was anyway cooking, she wanted us to pay for it. She wasn’t happy when we were cooking our own food.
We had conversations with her, but we were not vibing that much with her, which was sad.
How was the experience?
For me personally the experience wasn’t what Couchsurfing is about. She was focused by getting money through the guests she hosted. Also we kind of insulted us by basically wanting to see our chicks dead, which I didn’t like. In the end they survived, because we took good care of them. I was just feeling not super welcome, so that was not the best experience I had on this platform. It was nothing dangerous, but not what you would look forward to, when wanting to do good and local experiences.
What is important to know?
Not every host is a good host, that is most important. Also, as already mentioned in the article about Bishkek, the infrastructure isn’t good. In the Karakol region it is even worse. The English speakers here are even lower and generally speaking when you are looking for city life, you won’t find it really here, just in Bishkek a bit. Karakol is a good location though. You can get from there into beautiful nature and also make your way around or to the big lake, which is quite okay for swimming. It is just super cold.
Also when visiting the country before May, prepare warm clothes.
Summary
Sadly it’s not possible to always make great experiences, but from the unpleasant ones you can also learn something. Read the profiles better to make sure you’re gonna vibe, of course it’s never a guarantee.
The city in general is good for further activities, just sadly not many people are living there, so not so many hosts are going to be found in this region, but I believe when being authentic and nice, finding a host should still work out somehow.
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