Forget Hotels, and start Surfing!

In the first pages of my book, I start talking about a ‘hosting network’, which may be unheard of to many readers, as it was for me when I first heard about it in September 2007 (through a chance conversation with a Brazilian in Maputo, Mozambique). This is by far the greatest thing to ever happen to my travel, and I used it non-stop from that moment up until August 2009; that’s two years of travel without booking any hotels!!

The hosting or hospitality/social network I was introduced to is called CouchSurfing. Their About page states (among other things) that the “mission as an organization is to create inspiring experiences: cross-cultural encounters that are fun, engaging, and illuminating. These experiences take many forms. CouchSurfing’s initial focus was on hosting and ‘surfing’ (staying with a local as a guest in their home). Alongside these core experiences, we now also facilitate a growing array of activities and events.

“CouchSurfing members share hospitality with one another. These exchanges are a uniquely rich form of cultural interaction. Hosts have the opportunity to meet people from all over the world without leaving home. ‘Surfers,’ or travelers, are able to participate in the local life of the places they visit. We also give more people the chance to become travelers, because ‘surfing’ lowers the financial cost of exploration.”

So the basic concept is that you can search through profiles of people all over the world who are willing to host travellers in a non-monetary cultural exchange. I’ve now stayed with families in all corners of the globe, and lived a very different experience than that which I would have experienced in hostels or on the backpackers’ routes. Thanks to this network, many of its one million+ members have become some of my closest friends.

This may sound too good to be true, but the network is free to join, free to use, and the site is super comprehensive. You can look through photos of members, join discussion groups and search for events organized in your hometown or places you are going, and so much more.  You can even search for people by keywords, which I did while learning to prepare ethnic cuisine: I would choose a city, region, country or even continent, type in words like ‘chef’, ‘cook’, ‘restaurant’, and ‘food’, and the database brings up compatible people for me to search through and contact.

Security-wise, Couchsurfing (or CS) has a reference system, whereby guests and hosts can leave details about their experiences, allowing others to have a better idea of people’s character. Then there’s a vouching system, where people who have been vouched for at least three times can vouch for others they’ve met and find trustworthy; once you vouch for someone, you can’t take it back, so it adds another degree of seriousness and security to the system. And users can become ‘Verified’ if they choose, which involves paying a small amount of money (that supports the management of the site), after which a code is sent to your address to be entered into the system, verifying that you live where you say you do, for the added security of potential guests.

And of course, friends are listed in your profile, as well as as much personal information as you wish to share, such as interests, travel experience, languages spoken, groups you belong to, description of your home, etc. And the network isn’t limited to people who can host: many are only available to meet for a coffee or drink, and are happy to participate in events happening in their town. In my case, I had no home to offer for the first couple years of surfing, and only now am I finally able to return the favour by happily opening up my doors to guests.

So check out the site, and start surfing!! 🙂