DARE TO SHARE - 5 Peer to Peer Platforms Enhancing Travel
Meal Sharing Travelling alone?
Then Meal Sharing could be a great way to meet local people. Simply enter your location into the site’s search engine, and request to be hosted by one of the people listed. As well as a bit of company, you’ll get an insight into day-to-day life as well as a taste of home cooked cuisine. Dietary preferences are even flagged, so you can find hosts who cook according to your tastes – look out for symbols indicating preferences such as vegan, spicy and whether or not wine or beer is included. You can also see who you will likely be sitting round the dinner table with, from the host’s lodgers and friends, to their children and extended family. There are currently meal sharers in more than 325 cities, all helping to achieve Meal Sharing’s ultimate mission, “to build communities through shared resources, facilitate deeper cultural exchange, and encourage people to cook at home to enable a healthier lifestyle.”
www.mealsharing.com
LocalGuiding
If you’re tired of the same old tourist trails, and crave a unique local perspective on the countries you visit, Local Guiding is just the tool you need:
“Connect with locals and experience the local life as it is, not how mass tourism companies masquerade it. People who live in the destination know their place inside out. That's why only locals can provide you with local activities that are REAL, things to do that don't appear in any travel guide.”
What makes these experiences so unique is that you, the traveller, can customise them according to your interests. After you’ve entered your destination on the site, you’ll be presented with a list of various tour options. So for instance, if you enter Lisbon, among the many options you can choose from, there is hiking with adventurer Carlos, a romantic walk in Parque da Pena with Patricia, or Portuguese wine tasting with Alex. You can also pick the activity that suits your budget, as itineraries range in price from around $10 to several hundred.
www.localguiding.com
Transferwise
Peer-to-peer currency exchange skips the banking network entirely, so that money can reach overseas accounts very quickly, and usually without incurring exchange rates of greater than 0.5% (as opposed to 5% by most banks). Companies like Tranferwise do this by swapping currency, so for instance if you need to send £1,000 to Spain, they will find someone there who needs to send that amount to the UK. This is a breakthrough especially for expats, who often get hit with extortionate wire transfer fees when sending money to their home accounts.
Transferwise gives you around 5% more money when transferring internationally. There are no fees in setting up an account, and the process is transparent. The company, based in east London, was founded by former Skype director Taavet Hinrikus and consultant Kristo Käärmann. Mr Hinrikus said the start–up was inspired by the amount of money Skype was "constantly wasting" on "hidden" banking fees. It has so far transferred more than £125m of customers' cash, which it says has saved about £5m in bank fees.
Transferwise.com
Uber
Already a big hit in around 70 cities worldwide, Uber’s taxi service connects riders with drivers, making unfamiliar places more accessible. The best bit about this is you can request a driver via the Uber app at the tap of a button – and pay for it that way too. No cash exchanges hands, and you get an email receipt for your payment. Far from being a standard taxi service, you can even request the level of luxury you’d like in your car and pay accordingly. If you’re on a budget, or perhaps environmentally minded, you can event opt to split your fare with others going to the same place.
www.uber.com
Fon
One of the inconveniences of international travel is the extortionate roaming fees charged by mobile phone operators for internet and data usage. Skip all that, and get yourself a Fonera router, which costs a one-off £34. With that, you’ll have access to free Internet globally – currently, there are 12,623, 213 Fon spots to tap into. The concept is simple:
“Fon members share a bit of their home WiFi, and in turn get free access at millions of other Fon hotspots worldwide.”
Your WiFi signal will be split into two: a private signal for you and a public signal that you share with the Fon network. The service has particular potential for business travellers, who need to use a lot of Internet without the inflated fees often charged in hotels.
https://corp.fon.com/en
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Written by Hannah Stuart-Leach
Culture & Lifestyle Journalist - Currency Today
