Ramon Stoppelenberg, the 24-year-old Dutch student with itchy feet, is coming to SA in October.
Stoppelenberg started touring around Europe in March this year after launching his Web site, Letmestayforaday.com, on which he solicits room and board from strangers.
Now, thanks to a South African sponsor, he will leave Europe for the first time and see SA.
"I left my house in The Netherlands on 1 May 2001, with a backpack filled with clothing, a digital camera and a mobile phone. I am travelling the world to visit most of [the] people who invite me over," Stoppelenberg explains on the site.
One of the requirements for potential hosts is an Internet connection, as Stoppelenberg updates his site with details of every place he stays. Each host also gives him a small present, which he hands to the next host.
Thanks to massive media coverage, the site has attracted a large audience of willing hosts, and according to the site, Stoppelenberg currently has 2 100 invitations from 67 countries and is fast approaching a dozen visited countries in just seven months.
Although his shoestring budget originally saw him hitchhike from location to location, rising interest in his project has since seen sponsorship deals roll in. Stoppelenberg now carries a sponsored backpack, filled with sponsored clothing, and keeps his site updated with a sponsored digital camera and cellphone.
There are also Letmestayforaday.com T-shirts, coffee mugs and mousepads for sale, not to mention the sweatshirts, hats and messenger bags.
But despite his success and invitations from all across the world, Stoppelenberg has to date been unable to leave Europe. "I am a very good swimmer, but for this case I totally depend on sponsors. Or I could try the hospitality or airline companies, but Richard Branson still hasn`t called me yet..." he says of crossing oceans.
His attempts to solicit a ticket to the US may have failed, but Bob Williams, MD of eTravel, says he plans to have Stoppelenberg in SA to honour a tentative commitment to be guest speaker at the Johannesburg First Tuesday event in October.
"I believe entrepreneurship needs its reward," Williams says. "He [Stoppelenberg] is an Internet entrepreneur and he has used the Internet for his own benefit very well."
Williams says he is still trying to rouse the interest of an airline as co-sponsor, but adds that the trip has been arranged bar "tying up the loose ends". Stoppelenberg is to be hosted by a luxurious hotel, taken on a three-day safari, and will then travel around the country, hopefully finding South African hospitality living up to its online reputation. To date, the site lists four invitations from South Africans, in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Houtbay.
Not even SA`s high crime rate seems likely to scare off this traveller. "People are just made scared by television," he writes on his site. "One story about a hitcher with an axe who kills people does not mean that every hitcher has an axe with him. People just don`t trust each other that much anymore. I think it is a typical Dutch thing, to be very trustful."
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