HOW TO USE COUCHSURFING TO TRAVEL THE WORLD

WHAT’S COUCHSURFING?

Couchsurfing.com is a worldwide community for travellers.

It’s about meeting like-minded people, creating friendships and unforgettable experiences. We’ve been members of this website since 2010. If you haven’t heard about Couchsurfing or haven’t started surfing or hosting yet, you might find this post helpful. We’ve written it to give you information about this awesome project and

tips on how to use Couchsurfing to travel the world. 

Couchsurfing is very useful for both sides; for travellers coming to a foreign country and for hosts who offer space in their homes to travellers for free. Travellers have the chance to meet locals, stay with them in their homes, get information about the town and country, share their stories and make new friends. Hosts open their homes to travellers because they want to meet them, help them on their journey, practise foreign languages and are interested in culture exchange. And when they go travelling, they may surf too.

To be a member, you need to create a profile, which is for free.

Couchsurfing to travel the world is a fantastic way to meet locals and experience local culture, but it’s important to remember that staying with hosts from Couchsurfing is not staying in a free hostel. 

For both of them, spending time together is important to get to know each other. They can cook some delicious meals from their home country and share their travel and life stories. Surfers may bring a small present.

Surfers are not supposed to do anything in exchange for accommodation, for example to clean a host’s house etc. but, of course, they have to clean everything that they use – the room, a kitchen and a bathroom after using.

Hosts don’t feed surfers, only if they really want to, which they often mention in their profiles. Otherwise surfers should always remember to bring their own food. We have heard stories from our hosts about surfers who took anything from the fridge without asking and others managed to empty the fridge and storage before leaving the host’s house.

Couchsurfing on small red couches in Panama City, Panama

WHAT ELSE IS IMPORTANT TO KNOW?

• Surfers should spend time creating their profiles well, giving as much information about themselves as possible so that hosts can see who they are and what interests them. A full profile means a much higher chance of being accepted by hosts.
• Make sure to read the host’s profile well and choose to send a couch request to the person you want to meet and stay with. Some hosts have “house rules”, or allow surfers to stay only 1 or 2 nights (you might need more but it’s always possible to stay with more than one host at the same place) or want surfers to leave the house when they go to work.  Normally, hosts give keys to surfers so that they can explore the town and its surroundings on their own and can come back to the house whenever they need, if the hosts have to work or have different plans.
• Don’t write to people who consider the site to be a dating agency. You can see this from profile pictures, profiles and references. If a man accepts only one female or females,  he is probably looking for an affair. We also noticed that in some countries local women look for a ‘white’ husband through Couchsurfing.
• If you contact hosts who have a business in tourism (a tour agency, etc.), they might try to sell you a tour. Couchsurfing is not about making profits. It’s up to you to decide. You can always say ‘no’ even if you’re staying at their place for free.
• Always check out the host’s references and don’t write to people who have negative references. Pay attention to neutral references as well.
• When looking for the right host, surfers can tick their preferences in the search; if they want to stay with a female or a male, if they need a private room and how many of them will come.
• Check out hosts’ response rate ( 80 – 100 % is optimum) and last log in (some hours or up to 3 days).
• Write a personal request to the host, no “copy and paste”.
• Once both sides agree on the date of arrival, surfers should always let the host know if plans  change.
• Plan the route well and write to hosts ahead (at least 2 weeks before the date you want to stay with them). If there is no response within 2 – 3 days, search for others. Active hosts will reply fast, sometimes within a couple of hours.
• Couchsurfing is for adults of any age.

With our perfect host in Colombia and her daughter

 IS COUCHSURFING SAFE?

Yes, it’s safe if you use common sense and choose the right people to stay with.

We don’t always travel together and one of us was travelling five months in Mexico, staying with Couchsurfing hosts and had a fantastic time. We couch surfed together and also separately in various countries and haven’t had serious troubles at all.

If you’re a woman, it’s better to contact female hosts.

It’s always good to have a backup plan too (contacts of nearby hostels or hotels) in case something goes wrong.

Our wonderful host and now also a good friend Jo from Australia

WHAT’S OUR COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE?

We started surfing in 2010 and our experience all around the world has been 90% positive.

We became friends with many of our hosts and are still in touch with them. Our travel experience would have been very different if we had stayed in hostels.

We appreciate what we have received from this community and are very thankful to all the generous people that we have met so far and are looking forward to meeting others in countries we are heading to.

You might ask: “What about the remaining 10%?”

They are the people that we didn’t connect well with. It can happen even if you are careful while choosing the right host. There is always a risk but the chances that you choose the right one always prevail.

A few times we were wondering why people invited us to stay with them and then didn’t talk to us at all and we felt quite unwelcome in their home.

On the other hand, we heard a story about a group of surfers who talked just to themselves and used a host’s house as a hostel, coming back very late, often drunk, sometimes even with some other people that they just met!

One of us left a host in an hour because he was just weird even if his profile seemed to be OK

But…

As we have said before, most of the time we enjoyed staying with hosts from Couchsurfing.

Our hosts told us about incredible hidden gems to visit, often cooked tasty meals for us, two of them even fed us all the days,  sometimes we went camping together, explored jungles, caves and beaches, also towns and their sites and restaurants.

We slept on couches in living rooms, mattraces on the kitchen floor, on comfy beds in private rooms, sometimes with a bathroom attached, once in Colombia even a maid served us breakfast! 

We stayed in nice flats, beautiful houses, cottages in the forests, a house truck in the wild (a fantastic and quite common alternative housing in New Zealand).

Some hosts offer a tent, a hammock or a space on their boat too.

This is the cool house truck we stayed in, New Zealand

Inside the house truck. Beautiful, isn’t it?

We want to give you an idea what you can expect when you use Couchsurfing to travel the world but it’s always the people who make the place and the experience special. You can feel fantastic in a hammock and miserable in a luxury house.  Not only when couchsurfing!

And as you already know, there is always a risk that it won’t work out and you won’t connect with the host as you expect, but then another one will make it up for you.

The life itself is risky, don’t you think? But if you get out of your shell, you will be rewarded with amazing experiences!

Have you done couchsurfing, either as a host, or a surfer?

What has been your experience using Couchsurfing to travel the world ?