The Liquidity of Leisure Travel in Bogotá

As many now recognized, there is a significant increasing of alternatives ways of travelling more and more lately. In fact, the ethnographic research has much to say about this topic. One of the essential characteristics of the article is the fair approach to get to know tourists´ practices of their everyday life.  Thus, I made almost four dozen of ethnographies with CouchSurfing members in order to obtain data collection, the fieldwork took place during the first semester of 2015. It should come as no surprise that most of the users of CouchSurfing have been backpackers since the foundation of the network. All of them were hosted by me, and we spent most of the time together in their stay in the capital city of Colombia, Bogotá. This phenomenon can also be observed in the references, presents, conversations and so on, among the members of CouchSurfing. Therefore, non-place, as a new reality lacks of identity, relation and history (Augé), for instance a hotel room.  The article appraises the connection that exists between the conditions for anthropological places, as Augé outlines them, and the pursuit of hosts as a tourist in Bogotá. Reflecting on the Michel de Certeau´s background, one comes to get the large amount of practices of everyday life in a foreign country. The case, which focuses mainly on the ‘fluidity’ or ‘liquidity’ (Bauman) between an international guest and his leisure activities in a cultural holiday, may embody an empirical contribution to the debates of local culture protection by foreigners.