Guest Author - Jamie Louise Bloom

One of the best parts of travelling for me is meeting local people. If the thought of organising this on your own seems scary, you may find these travel homestay programs useful.

Servas www.servas.org/newsite
Servas is a non-profit group aimed at connecting travellers with hosts around the world. Its aim is to help create cross-cultural friendship and understanding. I first read of the service in Tales of a Female Nomad, by Rita Golden Gelman (http://www.ritagoldengelman.com/). I haven't used this service yet (although I plan to for my next trip). There is a membership fee required.

Women Welcome Women www.womenwelcomewomen.org.uk
Women Welcome Women is a UK-based "international friendship program", obviously targeted mostly at connecting women travellers with women hosts. I joined this before I went travelling, however the fact that it was offline based (i.e. I had to carry around a member directory with me), made it a little difficult. That said, I plan to use it next time I travel: I will simply contact people before I leave home, and save people's contact details electronically. There is also a membership fee required for this service.

Welcome Traveller www.welcometraveller.com
Welcome Traveller is a free online service to match travellers and hosts. It matches based on location and also by interest. I used this service when I was travelling to Ko Samui, Thailand in December 2004 and found it very useful. I didn't get the cultural immersion I was looking for (one host was American, and the other English), however I did get a tour by a local and some Western home-cooked food, which I'd been craving!

I hope these sites provide you inspiration to meet and stay with local people in the places you are travelling. If you come across other homestay programs that you believe are worthwhile, please let me know.