Robbbb's Guide to CouchSurfing
Hey everyone, I've been wanting to contribute something here for a while, and I noticed that many people here have never heard of Couchsurfing.org. I think it is an amazing community and an awesome tool for Advrider/horizonsunlimited users so I made a guide. The first edition is likely to be lacking in a number of ways so ask any questions you might have and I'll do my best to fill in the gaps.
I wasn't sure what subforum to post this in so let me know if there's a better option.
The Basics:
What is CouchSurfing?
Couchsurfing is a cultural exchange website that gives you the opportunity to stay with locals in nearly every country in the world, completely free of charge. Likewise, you can choose to open your home to travelers from all over the world. There are currently over 9 million members in over 120,000 cities across the globe. I've done both, hosting travelers from Ecuador, Germany, France, Thailand, the US, and Canada, as well as surfing with people from Venezuela, Canada, Mexico, USA, New Zealand, and Colombia.
The site began in 2004 when founder Casey Fenton found a super cheap flight from Boston to Iceland and on a whim sent an email to the entire mailing list of the University of Iceland asking if he could stay on someone's couch. Expecting no replies, instead he received over 50 replies saying yes and rather than spending the trip in a hotel alone, or in a backpackers hostel getting hammered with Australian bros in tanktops, he spent it seeing the city with locals and the idea for CouchSurfing was born.
How does it work?
The first step is signing up and creating a detailed profile, I'll go into a lot more detail on this later. The way it typically works after that is the person wanting to surf sends a personalized request to someone they would like to stay with, and that person can then accept or decline the request. The requests you send will include info about your trip, and why you want to meet the person you are asking to stay with. If the request is accepted the host will generally provide directions, contact info, and sometimes some additional info like their plans for when youre there, whether they can show you around...etc
Safety
This is generally people's first concern when they hear about the CouchSurfing website. You let strangers stay in your home? Aren't you worried about getting robbed? raped? murdered? And to be honest, it is somewhat good that so many people have this initial reaction that keeps them from signing up because the result is the community ends up being self-selected to be made up primarily of very positive, optimistic, open minded people. The people whose minds immediately go to fear don't sign up, the ones who think "that sounds incredible, I want to be a part of it" do sign up and the result is amazing.
That being said, security is still a valid concern and something to be taken seriously, bad things can and do happen but are the exception and are almost always avoidable. CouchSurfing has a few built in measures in place to help users stay safe but youre better off just using common sense and taking a few basic precautions.
Read the following:
Basic CS Safety
CS Safety tips
In addition I have some tips from my personal experience.
-Read references very carefully. There are only three options for references, positive, neutral, and negative so it is important to read between the lines. Sometimes a positive reference will explode with detail telling you how incredible a person is and how you have to meet them. Other times it will say something more along the lines of they were a nice host and it was nice to meet them. Negative and neutral references are rare so sometimes positive reviews are really neutral or
slightly negative reviews in disguise. With time you'll come to know the difference.
-There are so many users in most cities that I never host someone without references, and generally only send requests or host users with a minimum of 3-5.
-Read requests carefully and weed out people who seem to be just looking for a free place. Everyone appreciates the money saved but there is a huge difference between someone looking to stay and get to know locals and really get under the skin of a city and those just looking to use you like a free hotel.
Which brings me to my next point:
How to be a good CouchSurfing member
Communicate: If surfing, keep in touch with your host and let them know of your plans and if things change. When you arrive ask them if there are any house rules you should know about. Likewise, if hosting, make sure to let surfers know of any house rules like areas to stay out of, if and where they can smoke, if they can be in the house when you're not around...etc.
Don't be a leech: The community is based around the idea of paying it forward and nobody is keeping track of how many times you've stayed or hosted, but do your best to pull your own weight. If you live in a tiny town nobody ever comes and can't host, but still want to surf, that is absolutely fine, but try to contribute in whatever way you can, even if it is merely symbolic. Buying your host a
when youre out, cooking a meal, teaching a skill, or washing the dishes are all great examples and they will be appreciated by your host. The generosity of many people on the site astounds me and sometimes I struggle to feel like I'm doing my part.
Be open minded: I assume most people willing to host strangers from another country will be open minded, but I thought I'd say it anyway. People will come from all different ages, backgrounds, religions, cultures, ethnicities and sexual orientations and they won't always be stated point-blank in their profile. If any of those make you a little uncomfortable, that's fine as long as you are willing to be open minded and respect people as they are. Things may be awkward at times but that is how you grow and learn to handle new situations. That being said, you have a right to respect and your personal boundaries. If someone is coming on to you strongly, putting you in a compromising situation, or disrespecting your lifestyle, speak up and/or leave.
Couchsurfing is not a dating site:Hookups do occasionally happen and that's fine but don't be an ass and use the site to try to get laid. There are tons of dating sites in existence and getting laid when traveling shouldnt be that hard anyway. Someone is either opening their home to you, or trusting you enough to enter yours. Respect that and don't put them in an awkward or unfair situation. This is also likely the fastest way to get negative reviews.
Now that I've done my best to ensure you'll stay safe, and won't be an asshole, we can move on to helping you use the site.
Surfing:
Filling out a profile:
Take your time and do a good job filling out your profile. It will be the primary resource people use to decide if they wish to host or stay with you. Try to give people a sense of your personality, who you are, and why you use the site. Read a few other people's profiles to get a feel for it. Here's mine...
(I tried to embed this but it didn't work for some reason, any ideas?)
Rob's Profile
Not perfect, and not even totally up to date, but it does a good job of expressing my personality and gives me a chance to connect with other people through common interests.
Searching for Hosts:
This process has become a little more convoluted since the site updated to a newer, poorer design.
Searching for Hosts
If you click the top surf button (circled in red) it will try to make you choose dates, detail your trip, and way more before you can even see who is willing to host in that city. For me I much prefer to see what the options are before I do all the work. After many complaints they brought that option back and you can get there by clicking the green button.
This button leads to a search bar where you can enter a city and see who is currently available to host. For people who haven't used CS before it is pretty amazing to see how many hosts are out there. I'll do a few example searches so you can get an idea of the numbers.
- Toronto, Canada - 23,795 hosts
- Algiers, Algeria - 2685 hosts
- Cali, Colombia - 4152 hosts
- Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA - 1192 hosts
When you complete the search, sometimes it helps to sort people by experience. More experienced users are more likely to be safe hosts, more likely to accept requests, and are generally incredible people. Keep a close eye on references, average reply time, and reply rate to avoid wasting time on people who have abandoned the site and don't reply. If you are especially safety conscious you can filter to include only people who are verified and vouched by couchsurfing.
After searching you can look through the results, click on a few profiles, and if there's anyone you're interested in staying with, you can send them a request. Make sure to read the profiles thoroughly to avoid wasting time. Some females understandably choose only to host females, some people work a lot and only host weekends, or have certain other restrictions mentioned in the profile that might exclude you for whatever reason.
The profile will also list a few logistical things you might be interested in such as if it is a couch, bed, or floor being offered, whether it is in a private or shared space, and the max number of people and max number of nights they are willing to host at once.
Sending Requests:
Once you've chosen someone you'd like to stay with it is time to send them a CouchRequest. This part is also extremely important. Take the time to make the requests personal. You will have a much higher acceptance rate and in my opinion it is worth the time and effort over a copy-pasted request. Here are a few examples of requests I wrote that I consider to be good:
This first example is sent to a guy in Madison, Wisconsin who I ended up staying with.
The second is sent to a girl from Mexico living in Oklahoma City who also ended up hosting me.
Next is an example of what I think is a bad request. It's not terrible but it doesn't tell me anything about them or let me distinguish between them and people who are solely looking for a free place to stay. It might also be due to a bit of a language barrier but I'm living a busy life and also receiving a good number of requests, there's just not much reason for me to host people using minimal effort with copy/pasted responses.
Other details:
How many requests to send? This varies greatly from city to city and country to country and you eventually get a feel for how many you need to send to get at least one person who accepts. In Canada I sent a total of 5 requests in two cities and 4 said yes. In many cities in the states I sent 8-10 before finding someone. Sometimes the website will actually recommend a number of requests for a given city but remember, the better your profile and requests, the fewer you'll need to send to get a positive result.
How far in advance do I need to send requests? This also varies greatly. I imagine 5-14 days in advance is the ideal timeline for most people, earlier than that and people don't know what might come up, and if you wait to only 2-3 days notice you'll probably receive less yeses. My last trip, however, I sent requests on no more than 2-3 days notice due to the unpredictable nature of a bike trip and found hosts in London, ON Canada, North Bay, Green Bay, Madison, Memphis, Little Rock, and Oklahoma City. The only city I failed to find a host in was Sault Ste Marie and it's quite small.
How long is too long? Once again, it depends. Some people will only host surfers for one night, others are cool with you staying for a week, and some say 2-3 days. I would never ask to stay more than 2-3 days upfront, if your stay in a city is longer than that you'll probably have more success trying to break it up among multiple hosts
Actually Surfing:
Time to talk about actually doing this CouchSurfing thing because I know nobody is here just to fill out profiles and send out requests.
Before You Arrive:
Sometime before I arrive (usually the day before) I try to let my host know roughly when I'll be in, and also let them know I'm on a motorcycle so my timing could be way off. I see what they're up to and if they want to hang out or if theyre busy. I get their address if I don't have it and ask if there's anywhere nearby to safely park the bike. Sometimes they aren't free to meet up immediately and in that case I go explore the city solo. None of these are requirements, just ideas, you'll come up with a routine that works for you.
Arrival:
Again, do whatever you feel comfortable with, but I generally roll up, greet them (I go with whatever the custom is in that place, whether it be handshake, bow, kisses), and start some conversation. This section isn't really needed but I think a lot of people are scared the initial encounter will be awkward. It pretty much never is, everyone is laid back, tend to have similar interests, and when you're traveling you become accustomed to meeting new people.
Not really sure where to go from here, the rest of staying with someone pretty much handles itself. I can answer any questions or talk about experiences I've had if people want to hear more.
Hosting
There are really three options for hosting listed in order from most to least common. A. You can sit and wait for people to send you a request. B. You can contact someone who has posted a trip in your area and offer to host them. C. If your city is large they may have a "last minute and emergency couchrequest group" that people will post in looking for hosts.
A. is pretty self-explanatory, people send you requests, you look at the dates, number of people, browse the profile and decide to accept or decline. You can also reply "maybe" in the case you might be able to host but can't commit, or that you can't host the whole time they are requesting but still want to host them for 1-2 days.
B. This option is new and it's found by clicking the "Host" button at the top of the screen and going down to Option #3. It functions exactly like the search you use when surfing except it also includes info about their trip. I personally haven't hosted using this method but I think it's awesome for seeking out people you want to meet. Sometimes I travel to a country and receive such help and hospitality that I want to seek out people from that country and help them when they are in the US and Canada.
C. This is way less common, but there is a group for people doing last minute requests. If I finish working and decide at the last second I want to host, sometimes I check this. In general people who post here are less reliable and have fewer references but don't discount it entirely. I did end up hosting this way once because they were from a place I'd traveled extensively and loved. It was a great experience hosting them.
Odds and Ends
City Pages:
Toronto City Page
City pages are found by searching the city name where it says "find a place" in the linked image above. Each city has it's own subforum where you can post questions about the city, find other travelers or locals, find out about events...etc.
During my first motorcycle trip in Vietnam, I'd never ridden anything but a 110cc scooter, but had idiotically made plans to ride a manual bike over 2000 km from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City. I posted on the Hanoi page asking if anyone knew where I could pay for lessons. Within a few hours I had an offer from a local to come pick me up and take me 30 minutes outside the city to his home where there was no traffic and teach me to ride on his bike :O. He did just that and even tried to hide his wincing as I shifted gears with the throttle partially open.
I offered to pay but he politely refused, and I even tried to make a small gesture by picking up his coffee at an amazing local coffeehouse that he later showed us, but that too was refused. People are amazing.
Events: Couchsurfing has weekly meetups in a ton of cities around the world. I was skeptical at first, why do they even meetup in the first place? Will people be awkward? The size of the events in various cities blew me away. In Toronto around 100-150 people show up every week to a cool bar to hang out, meet people, and drink. It was about half locals and half people from other countries. In Lisbon, Portugal, ~120 people. In Hanoi, Vietnam, around 70. In Rio de Janeiro, around 250 people every week! Imagine riding into a city and having a party waiting for you with interesting and outgoing people from all over the world. On top of this, many CS members will organize various outings and events by starting threads on a city page. The events tend to be weekly and if you aren't there on the day it's happening you can always make a thread talking about your trip, when youll be in town, and asking if anyone wants to grab a coffee, meet up, or grab a bite to eat.
Another Vietnam story: me and my friend like to slackline (similar to tight rope walking but low to the ground and with a looser line). On Hanoi's city page we posted saying we were going to a local park to slackline and asking if anyone wanted to join. We expected 1 or 2 replies, tops. We got 20, and after an amazing time messing around in the park with 15 locals, plus all the other who joined in just after walking by and seeing it, one of the girls asked what we were doing after. "Probably going back to our hostel to drink
with Australian bros in tanktops". They asked if we wanted to go to their house and cook dinner. "yes that sounds much nicer". We swung by the market together, picked up ingredients and they made around 10 dishes in 30 minutes while we did the dishes. They were awesome people and we spent 4 days longer in Hanoi than expected running around the city seeing cool stuff. It is one of my favorite cities to this day and I didn't see a single site that's listed in the Lonely Planet guide. I have a ton of stories like this thanks to CS.
References:
Write good, honest, personal references, the site revolves around them. Don't be afraid to leave a negative or neutral reference if it is warranted. Getting references might be tough early on because it is harder to find surfers/hosts when you have 0 references. If this is you, go to events and meet people instead. Make friends there and get your first few references that way, but only leave references for people you've spent a considerable amount of time with (a few hours, minimum).
The End
Well that's it for now. I think people's responses will give me a better idea of what's lacking and I can flesh it out. I really hope this helps. I think the adv motorcycling community and Couchsurfing are a perfect pair. So many times I see acts of generosity on ADVRider/HU and there is even a "tent/couch space thread". It only makes sense that the two groups mix but most Couchsurfers I talk to have never heard of our crazy overlanding adventures, and very few motorcycle travelers are aware of CouchSurfing's existence.
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