Occasionally I hear people talking about Couchsurfing and I always cringe. The thought of letting a random stranger stay at my house for a week is just about the last thing I want to do. But as with everything new like this, there are positives to be drawn from the experience. My good friend Lindsay Pratt is an avid user of the site and kindly agreed to give an account of her experiences.
CouchSurfing is a cheap way to travel but it’s also about meeting people and learning cultures from a different angle. There are currently more than 600,000 members [on the site] in over 230 different countries.
Members create profiles where they have the opportunity to write about themselves: their interest, hobbies, philosophies and their couch. After each stay, you can leave a reference, either negative or positive – these are crucial for upcoming CouchSurfing experiences.
‘How safe is CouchSurfing?’ I hear people ask. There is of course a risk involved, but that risk will be reflected whenever you travel. Precautions can easily be made and this is done via testimonials, friend link-strength indicators, vouching and the verification system. You see, not just anyone is a vouched member. Members can only be vouched for by an already CouchSurfing-vouched member. It’s an entire circle of trust, with the setup being very similar to eBay.
When you travel using Couchsurfing and don’t feel comfortable in somebody’s home, you’re under no obligation to stay, provided you let your host know you will be leaving. You should always have a back-up plan, even if it’s just a list of hostels in the area. And if you’re hosting somebody, don’t be afraid to ask them to leave, or ask them to leave their passports behind as an added security measure.
I currently have hosted 15 different ’surfers mainly from America, Canada and Italy. They can stay from anywhere between one and five nights. We always have a laugh together in the evenings and often take turns cooking dinner and doing the dishes. Two Italian boys stayed for five days and cooked dinner every time. Although we ended up eating pasta every single night – we always had a good bottle of wine to go with it! One guy from Cyprus became very good friends with my housemate and she ended up flying to Cyprus to meet up with him and reverse the CouchSurfing experience.
I personally became good friends with an American girl, who I ended up inviting out to a work function – we had a blast and she got along well with all [of] my colleagues. This is something you couldn’t do by yourself, but is a great example of what CouchSurfing is all about. Saying this, not everyone who you host is friendly or talkative. One girl spent the whole day in the living room and never said a word. We only found out on the last day that she had constant streak of bad luck since arriving, first she was hit by a car, then her bag was stolen and the following night came home in a hospital gown after having her drink spiked!
Most guests entertain themselves during the day with plenty to explore in London and come home once we are home from work. Sometimes they don’t come home until 3am after going clubbing all night. We have no responsibility over them, so they are free to do as they please, as long as they respect few house rules (like locking doors, reduce water usage, etc).
I haven’t actually been CouchSurfing myself yet and reversed the roles, but I think it is a great way to meet new people and to have a closer encounter with other people’s cultures. I will be starting a three month adventure on the Trans-Siberian next week and I will be taking part in the CouchSurfing experience, mixed in with a few hostel stays. By combing the two, it will allow me to meet a greater range of people and to combine two different travelling experiences.
It definitely seems to be the case that since like-minded travellers use the system, and with the added protection of the site’s vouching, I am always meeting good people and getting a good experience by allowing them to stay. It might not sound like the safest idea, but in practice Couchsurfing turns out to be one of the best travel social network ideas out there.
I always found couchsurfing to be safe. The key is too contact the people before hand and sort of feel them out. Picking verified people is also a really big help too!
Sounds like a great way to get your stuff stolen. I wonder how many people have lost stuff through these arrangements. I could never trust some random with the keys to my place, even if they have spent a little time getting “vouched for”… sooner or later, I’d wake up and things would be gone.
Hey, I found your blog because its name is similar to mine! This post is intriguing and I’m going to check out that website. Budget Travel did an article on house swapping and the author specifically addrsesed theft. She said she left her laptop on the table for them to use and no, nothing was every stolen! :)
I’ve done a reasonable amount of couchsurfing and would say that it’s essentially completely safe. There have been a few people who have abused the system, but their prescense is so small as to be entirely insignificant.
The people who have abused the system had almost exclusively really scarce profiles and no contacts, or just contacted couchsurfers last-minute by email. Most couchsurfers have at least a few contacts who are ‘friends’ with them or have left a reference (like facebook, but you can see everyone’s profile)
To create this with bad intention would be a) really time-consuming and b) a really ineffective way of stealing anyway! Besides, users are monitored for that kind of thing.
What I’m trying to put across is that the kind of person to steal from you or attack you just isn’t the kind of person open-minded enough to want to couchsurf.
When you meet someone, you write on their profile a ‘reference’. So you can see what kind of person you’ll be hosting/staying with.
As for leaving couchsurfers your keys, this isn’t expected at all of a host, but some feel comfortable with it. The host can set any rules they want eg. when to come back etc. so it doesn’t interrupt your life too much.
To reply to realist’s question, I can tell you that in the last week there were 21,424 real-life introductions, of which 28 were negative. (http://www.couchsurfing.com/mission_stats.html) Negative could be anything, so that doesn’t mean anything major happened, but you can see the statistics show that bad experiences are extremely rare! Of course there’s a risk, but nothing in life is risk free! If you hosted 1,000 people, approximately ONE of these, statistically, would be a negative experience, and most probably just negative in an irritating way.
And finally, couchsurfing is a great way to meet really cool people, experience new cultures, and have fun! That’s from personal experience!
Conclusion: have some faith in humanity! :-)
I’ve hosted at least 15 sets of couchsurfers in groups of 2 to 4 and never had a single safety issue or theft problem. The majority of my experiences have been with students from other Europe or China who are spending what many of them consider a dream vacation road tripping across the United States. The vast majority of these people are in awe of the US and are genuinely interested in having literally the time of their lives in what some consider a limited opportunity to come here.
As Nomadic Matt wrote, the trick is to just feel them out before you invite them into your house. Some of my friends are horrified that I would participate, and others think it’s the coolest thing ever. It’s not for everyone. For me, this isn’t really about letting strangers stay in my home for nothing. It’s about meeting new friends, understanding cultures, and just enjoying people. The phrase I often hear from couchsurfers is that “CouchSurfing is renewing my faith in humanity”. Not only is that true for me, I can honestly tell you that somehow inviting, and then befriending people from around this world is one of the most spiritually satisfying things I have ever done.