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"Couchsurfing" Travel Takes Off On the Web
mikesd81 writes "The Associated Press writes about a growing network of people online who've gone a step beyond hotels, hostels and even apartment swapping in their travel planning: They sleep on each others' couches. A number of Web sites have sprung up to help pair travelers searching for a place to crash and hosts with a spare couch. Sites like hospitalityclub.org, couchsurfing.com, globalfreeloaders.com and place2stay.net are often free, serving only as middlemen and offering tips on how to find successful matches.
The sites are largely the creations of 20-somethings bitten with wanderlust and the hope of helping to bring together people from different cultures. They often depend on volunteer administrators to help manage the Web operations."
This is such a great idea, particularly for male college students. I wish something like this existed 10 years ago when my friends and I traveled through Europe. To maximize the length of our stay, we slept in $10 grimy hostels and ate basically nothing (or other people's leftovers). Given that some of these services boast well over 100,000 members, I wonder at what point they start impacting the Hostel industry?
While this is likely a great resource for men, I couldn't imagine using one if I were a woman traveling in Europe. Even the hostels were pretty sketchy, and the women we ran into often traveled in groups (or with a bunch of guys) to make it safer. While they offer feedback systems like eBay, it would be pretty easy for sexual predators to fake the feedback to lure young foreign women.
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Back in my twenties and thirties, I did the couch circuit, both pro and amateur.
I was a rock musician from 1978 to 1998 in unsigned bands, and there was an informal couch circuit among bands. An out-of-town band would play a club and make friends with the openers or headlining acts. Phone numbers would be exchanged, and when we hit their town we'd have couch space, maybe an extra bedroom or foam pad if we were lucky. Bands I was in would do three to six week tours and there wasn't room in the budget for a motel room every night. Given that all of us were riding in a van with all of our gear, sleeping in the van wasn't an option. Best case scenario was a couch five nights and a motel room or two for the rest of the week.
This sort of network could be a boon to unsigned bands, sort of an unofficial hostel system.
Then there's the amateur side: getting kicked out of apartments in Boston in the '80s because the landlord wanted to convert to condos, and not having the cash for first and last months rent plus security. The couch circuit was a way of making enough money to get that apartment. The alternatives were camping out in your band's rehearsal space (hey, cockroaches make wonderful pets!) or persuading your girlfriend to let you move in with her (hey, no farting in bed!).
Damn, I wish I had an internets back in 1982.
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
I spent the past summer doing the typical cross country road trip thing. I met nothing but nice people all along the way and only ever stayed in a hotel a few times (vegas and reno). With people worrying about safety it is just like any other online venture, if you don't trust someone, don't invite them over, simple as that. I stayed with people in st.louis, albequerque, santa cruz, san diego, L.A., all over. Everyone I met was super nice and just awesome people in general, I recommend couchsurfing highly. I chronicled all of my adventures at http://boxmansion.com/roadtrip in case anyone cares to read