Times are hard and money is tight. It’s not cheap doing that dream holiday throughout Europe in the summer after finishing up at uni. That didn’t stop one particularly resourceful, multilingual Belgian man who, with the help of Tinder, managed to travel through twenty one different cities in two months while not ever paying for an accommodation.
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A man, a backpack and a mobile phone
25 year old Anthony Botta came up with the genius idea after being inspired by couchsurfing. Realising the potential of the Tinder, he set out on a goal to travel throughout the continent exclusively using the application to find places to crash for free. With Tinder Plus, he was able to change his location to his upcoming destination before arriving so he could line up a place to stay.
Botta keeps an active YouTube channel chronicling his journeys while tindersurfing, and would actually use that as an opening line with his matches:
‘[I would] break the ice with “You are my first match in the city” and then whatever the lady would text back I would send her the link of the trailer video that is on my YouTube channel followed by “wanna be my host?”’ As far as we can tell from his videos on YouTube, the pickup line has yielded positive results. Fair play.
Two obvious advantages
For the Belgian man, free lodging was just one of the perks that came along with his Tinder adventures. Botta is rather forthcoming when he reveals what his true motivation is for embarking on his journey with the help of the dating app:
‘Money saving plays a part but I will say it is more about meeting new people, new cultures and discovering places I have never been to. I love to get out of my comfort zone and Tindersurfing definitely took me out of it.’
And the burning question that’s on everyone’s mind: did he hook up with the hosts, or was he just crashing on their couches?
‘In the end it is like a regular Tinder date: sometimes you go to bed together, sometimes not. If you don't click, if the magic doesn't happen, then I sleep happily on the sofa’, Botta claims. This guy really is living the dream.
The next adventure
After over 3000 matches on Tinder, Anthony Botta has his sights set on two new destinations: New Zealand and America. After seeing this lad’s success, we’ve got no more excuses. Looks like it’s time to brush up on a second language and get swiping.
Check out the video above for more on Anthony's story!
