That being said I also had some amazing experiences through couchsurfing.
It started being a concern because I began to think that people looking at my profile would assume that I was just looking to host women which wasn't the case at all. But from speaking to my guests, they said they chose me to host them because of the positive feedback from other female couchsurfers.
I do miss couchsurfing, I met some great and interesting people and have been thinking about getting back into it but have concerns about the direction couchsurfing has gone. I now live on a narrowboat on the canals in the UK and I think it'd make an interesting place for couchsurfers to stay.
We never received any negative feedback and were in high demand. Aside from that one super busy weekend, where things did get a bit cramped (but people knew in advance that it would be), nobody shared any beds or couches and couchsurfers had rooms separate from the hosts. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Sharing beds with the host is... creepy (unless the person was given their own bed/couch and they mutually decided they wanted to share a bed, of course).
I miss couchsurfing too. I stopped being part of it around the time it got a sense for being a bit commercial. My circle of couchsurfing friends did it for the cultural exchange and at some point it drifted from that to just free accommodation and drinking parties. At least that’s the sense I got.
I was actually pretty surprised when I was speaking to another couchsurfing host how many women he'd hosted that he'd slept with. Perhaps I'm (or was) naive but it never occurred to me that people would use it for hooking up.
> Women would be surprised that I had a bed just for them
It sounds like you were taking a lot of the desperate people on the site that aren't mostly in it for the cultural exchange but to save $5. Because here's the thing - everyone's profile has a section detailing what kind of room/bed the Couchsurfer will get. A "shared bed" is a red flag the size of Russia.
That's the other thing: I like to read the CS profiles of the guys accused of being creepy. 95% of the time, it's VERY obvious who they are. Guys will have "sex" in their interests, only have a shared tiny bed, or pictures of them shirtless, or 100% references from young women, etc., etc. That's the beauty of Couchsurfing - if you see a profile that you're not 100% confident in, then just move on; there are fifteen million people.
The real problem on Couchsurfing stems from people not reading each others' profiles. People get greedy, see a way to save on hotels, then send out copy-paste message spam that's not unique to your profile. I only host people who send me a message personalized to my profile, and even then that's after a lot of reading their profile, references, etc. I simply ignore the copy-pasted messages - if you don't care who you end up with, then you're not Couchsurfing for the interesting experience, you're doing it to save a few bucks.
If you don't read profiles and carefully select, then you're basically rolling the dice. This is the #1 cause of bad Couchsurfing experiences.
TL;DR: if you choose a host without reading, Couchsurfing just becomes Omegle IRL.
(If you're a woman reading this and want to Couchsurf 100% safely, you can do things like only surf families, other women, places where you'll get your own room, etc etc.)
Also, as a 2005 signup, I can attest that copy/paste requests have always been a thing. In fact, initially they were the norm. Back when travelers used internet cafes and were paying for every minute, it was understandable that they needed to send out a wave of requests quickly without being able to personalize them. Even now, I prefer copy/paste as a host because I can sympathize with travelers and don’t want them to jump through silly hoops.
And I have no problem with people that want to save money, but if that's the - only - thing they're using CS for, with no interest in ever talking to me, then I'm just not going to host them.
It's admirable to take in anyone, but it's pretty rare. The vast majority of hosts I know (and have surfed) will only take people in who have read their profiles.
Like I mentioned, there's a safety component to this (for men as well!) but also a practical side - many people live a good bit outside the city they're listed in, some people go to bed early or late, some people play music all night, some people are nudists, some people have a shorter sleeping spot (couch/bed/etc)... If you don't read profiles you're just rolling the dice - even if you just want a free bed!
By the way, I think I'll try to be more active on BW/Trustroots (hosting mostly.) Any advice for how to get my profile seen? On CS I get absolutely flooded with messages (and often get great, well written messages) - on BW and Trustroots I've gotten nothing.
Really, for me the negative change in CS over the years was the explosion in hosts who were sedentary. If you don't do shoestring travel as a lifestyle yourself, you won't be able to sympathize with your potential guest's needs. For a site that, in Europe, spread initially through the hitchhiking community, I was appalled to see so many CS hosts by 2008 who looked down on free travel, and threw around words like "freeloader".
I also can't agree with people complaining about guests who need their hosts to feed them. If they are ordinary backpackers who just budgeted poorly, that is one thing, but if they are intentionally trying to live on no money, that is another thing entirely. Among the freespirited alternative traveler community who founded CS, there have always been people traveling by providence, and they have been among my best and most memorable guests. Their stories and positive attitudes far outpaid the pasta and salad I made for them.
Finally, you can't assume that guests who write a non-copy/paste request actually read your profile. Sure, they may have quickly scanned your profile for things they can mention in a request, but that doesn't mean they care about the details. For years I could only offer a mattress on the floor and clearly said so in my profile, and yet so many of the guests who wrote ostensibly personalized requests either didn't catch that, or when they accepted my invitation and arrived at my home they complained about it. Again, writers of copy/paste are just as likely to be appreciative or not.
As for getting requests on BW or Trustroots, either live in a place where many travelers want to go to, or become a superhost whose house is open to all travelers and word of the good vibe there attracts people to your region even if initially they don't know what to do there. Those are your only options, really. However, this looks to be the biggest wave of CS refugees ever, so you may start getting more requests regardless.
I don't think you are wrong, sometimes it is obvious you are walking into a bad situation, but wtf is the point of couchsurfing if its not to save money? lol.
TBH I think the real problem with couchsurfing is that it was more of a passing fad, cultural phenomenon rather than something that will stay forever. My guess is someone will come up with a more clever solution and the generation that used couchsurfing will keep using it and a new generation of travelers will use the new thing.
You want a virtue signal? Here you go: sexual assault is the fault of the assaulter, not the assaulted.
Unlike most people passing by this thread, I have actual experience with this topic. I'm close to several women who have Couchsurfed solo, and I have hosted countless young women (men as well, of course.)
If a discussion about American gun deaths came up, it would not be victim blaming to explain the context and the source of most of these deaths.
My comment had several purposes. One was to explain the most common reason for sexual assault on the platform. Another was to help people getting into Couchsurfing. There will undoubtedly be a number of HN users joining Couchsurfing as part of this thread, and I wanted to pass along valuable safety information to any women among them.
More than anything, Couchsurfing taught me wonderful things can happen when you embrace serendipity. Couchsurfing is an important antidote to a world that seems increasingly fearful of strangers.
I hope they manage to survive.
Paradoxically, trusting strangers has also made my life safer.
In Armenia, I met an old woman who then helped me get through a dangerous area and told me not to worry - she'd protect me like her own grandson :) In another country, I made friends with an army officer who watched over me, and somewhere else a truck driver helped me through a tough border crossing.
People also seem to be scared of that one crazy person who'll stab or rob them. Here's one thing I realized: even the "bad" members of society are not bad to everyone. A mugger doesn't mug his friends and many murderers have been loving parents. Getting to know someone - aside from being interesting - means they'll see you as another human being, not some target. (Most of the time. Of course, always use your judgment, and if something feels off, just leave.)
I hope CS gets reborn. Who knows, it might happen - maybe they'll run out of cash, put the site up for sale, and someone will rebuild it as it should be. Or maybe the current leadership will do a 180 (unlikely, but who knows!)
I'm sad that all those good memories will be tinged with pain by this betrayal, but it's given me a good reason to get back in touch with old friends, and invite them to BW. I wholeheartedly agree with your descriptions of CS and trusting strangers; you've had some great stories!
My experience with CouchSurfing, on the other hand, was weird. When me and my roommates (3 guys, 2 girls) signed up our shared house (in waking distance of a touristic city center), we were expecting to see lots of backpackers and tourists our age. Instead, most of our guest requests were middle-aged women with a strong urge to point out how adventurous they were feeling. I believe we not once had a guest request from a guy.
Middle aged women make up a very small percentage of Couchsurfing, and when I see them they're usually hosts only. I get a ton of requests, and I think it'd be more likely for me to get a message from an astronaut than two middle aged women.
I just checked my references and my friends' references and didn't find one woman over 40. I really wonder what happened in your case!
The weirdest stay-over that I ever had was a Korean religious pilgrimage who mistook me for a monk because apparently one had lived in my apartment before I moved in.
They had loads of really interesting stories and it sounded fascinating. They'd talked about how those who had done the winter season (24 hours of pitch blackness for 4 months) were all a little bit on edge and twitchy.
Really, Couchsurfing changed my life. Ignore the fact that the app is a dumpster fire and just give it a shot - or better, try BeWelcome or Trustroots.
And again, if anyone has any questions about Couchsurfing or wants to start but is confused (or wants to couchsurf my boat!) please send me an email (it's in my profile.)
With that (which I copied once I was reading a full descriptive profile) you get a great filter. I have done a good share of CS, both as host and guest, over the last ~10 years, having either good or amazing experiences.
can you explain? what keywords do you have to put to avoid this?
We had an artist which might had a mental issue or maybe just acting as he constantly confused who we were and told the same histories again and again. Some guy who in his own words, was trying to start his own religious cult. And some guy who brought a lot of peyote and blow the kitchen trying to destilate the mescaline.
Those were pretty interesting times, I definitely appreciate the experiences I had, but I also don't think I host anybody now (or at least not until my son is older).
I probably hosted 10 times and stayed with people about the same. Each time it was such a wonderful experience - by far the best way of traveling when I was in my 20s. Truly an amazing exercise in trust, as well as building experience of the kindness of strangers (with memorable adventures).
Couchsurfing is so interesting. Its success relies on it never becoming mainstream.
It's like those word-of-mouth-only parties that are so great but if enough people hear about them, they are no longer any good.
I had a similar experience with drum circles in Toronto, Canada. They were this hippie heaven of people coming together in a park and playing drums once a week in the summertime. Other people would come by and picnic, sit around, dance, hula hoop, whatever.
Once it got popular enough, the park would be littered by the end of the day, so local residents complained and got drum circles banned, so we don't have drum circles anymore, because they were too good and a complete non-profit :)
What are the chances of hosting somebody you don't like? What are the chances of showing up to someone's couch and feeling yikes?
I imagine the odds are reduced if the people using the service are largely of a similar ilk. Similar ilk works well if the service is carefully grown over time via careful word of mouth. People tend to behave much better if you know each other through a mutual friend or acquaintance. If the service grows big enough, that invisible bond of a small community will be gone and I imagine that invisible bond is what the original poster was so fond of.
It's like that house party example - if enough people show up, that delicate balance of meeting new people by being introduced through a mutual friend and having the time to make a connection with a stranger is broken and you end up 'networking' instead of connecting, as is the case with most tech meet-ups I've attended :)
hosts will be overwhelmed with requests. many guests will be freeloaders who would be better served with airbnb.
for the site to work, the influx of new members needd to be small enough so that the community csn handle it.
word of mouth is the only way to make sure that new members can get a reference before their first trip.
It worked very much as described in that post, and didn't seem to have the problems listed in yours. The biggest problem I remember with CS, was people trying to inappropriately use it to get laid.
The real problem is the same that has been plaguing the web in general - there seems to be no more room for just doing good stuff while trying to break-even or even making a modest profit. Everything has to be a "startup" with the possibility of making its founders millionaires (or more).
I got on the internet in the early/mid 90s when the web was new & for a few years it was mostly non-commercial and ran by enthusiasts and hobbyists acting according to the hacker ethos of sharing, openness, decentralization & world improvement. You could see these principles for years even behind decidedly commercial sites such as craigslist.
It didn't last for long but that's the kind of ideology couch surfing originally started in & it's sad but unsurprising to see where it ended up in.
i should have pointed out that i am speculating.
Maybe they should host first?
My brother lived near a big ole drum circle in Santa Cruz, CA and had the same experience. Originally it was a small crew and they weren't a problem. They hung out, didn't get too loud, and were respectful of the properties nearby. Definitely some LSD and other substances floating around, but nothing out of control.
Couple years later it's essentially a quasi-homeless community and lots of problems with litter, noise, and, eventually, overdoses.
See also: Mop Theory & Subcultures -- https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths
In China and Vietnam, I found that the locals use the site only to meet foreigners. For example an teacher in Vietnam asked me to be a guest during an English class.
I traveled by bicycle. This meant I could use also the Warm Showers website. This worked extremely well in Europe and the US. I had wonderful hosts in New York City, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Bavaria, Zurich, Washington DC, Berlin, Czech Republic, Dallas, Houston, Baton Rouge.
And in the Netherlands I used Vrienden Op De Fiets, which is more expensive, but also very nice.
Although, I never tried it..I heard many good things about it.
I also noticed Travis Kalanick used it as a title “couchsurfing” in one of his blogs before he launched Uber.
Nothing has happened to me or anyone I know (or anyone I know knows.) And I don't think anyone should be afraid of things like murder, kidnapping, etc. While pretty much every high profile app/website these days has a big tragedy happen, Couchsurfing only had one - I actually think that's very low for the number of times people have Couchsurfed. (If you're thinking of Airbnb as the safe alternative, it's had far more gruesome and tragic events.)
But the thing to be careful with using Couchsurfing isn't a microscopic chance of murder, it's creepy hosts. There are always hosts that are clearly using Couchsurfing as a dating site. The way around this is just to read profiles and references.
Of course, everyone sets their own comfort level. Maybe a woman would only want to stay with other women; or maybe only with families, or with gay men. Maybe you'll only want to stay with someone if you'll get your own private room (you can filter for only those if you want.) Or only by verified profiles with 20+ references. Then there are red flags - Does a man have only references from women? That's a red flag.
That's the beauty of it: it's a completely choose-your-own-adventure kinda thing. If you want to stay with a family with kids in the mountains you can do that; if you want to join a clearly wild local on their quest to do illegal activities that will leave you with a hell of a story to tell, then that's also possible.
I would encourage anyone to still think about it no matter how old they may be - some of my best hosts got into CS late in life. It's possible to Couchsurf in a "paranoid" manner (for example only staying with families) it just takes a bit more effort and planning :)
There are some safety nets in place, like you can get verified by couchsurfing for a small fee. It's a trust system, people are encouraged to vouch for each other. If you're worried, then only visit/host people who have a lot of good reviews, or who can be vouched for by someone else in the community. If you were asking from the perspective of a prospective traveler I would suggest going to local couchsurfing meetups rather than randomly finding people to stay with. Often you can get recommendations directly and gut feel is very valuable.
They are people who have chosen to stay at a stranger's house
> Do you think women are completely naïve about how the world works
No, but I don't think they want to have to take every decision based on probability of getting raped
> I've known two women who couch surf and it was de rigueur to have sex with their hosts
And I know male hosts who had sex with their male visitors. Does that mean that if I couchsurf at a man's flat I should be expecting intercourse for my bed?
If you think women can afford to take the same risks as men when travelling then I just really don't know what to say to you. That's just hopelessly naïve. Attractive girls learn very early on that every man wants to have sex with them. It's just part of life for them.
> Does that mean that if I couchsurf at a man's flat I should be expecting intercourse for my bed?
No, but if I were you I would at least consider that there might be a "misunderstanding" leading to you having to find alternative accommodation.
Why, on a site like couchsurfing, would there be any implied sex, or opportunity for misunderstanding around 'sex for surfing'? It's blatantly outside the standards and norms of the community.
I don't think I've used Couchsurfer since....2012? Roughly the same time I discovered Tinder. I absolutely treated CS as a dating site where you had to be extremely discrete/low-key in your approach. I rarely offered my couch but did offer local tour guide-like services to cute women which was essentially a first date. I would never consider staying at a male host's place; even as a Marine I would assume the rape/murder risk too high. Maybe I'm just a misanthropic cynic but I don't trust anyone to behave themselves. I also have never seen the appeal of the "broke backpacker" travel methodology, perhaps colored by experiences living out of a backpack in the military, which usually sucks. If I have the money to fly halfway around the world, I should have the money to afford comfortable private accommodations. If I'm going to mingle, I'd prefer to mingle with the locals rather than other foreigners on a shoestring budget (or rich people PRETENDING to be on a shoestring budget).
But he also was arguing, IIUC, that the sex for stay is implied for women. I get that people will use it that way, but implying that it is any sort of norm is a very perverted view of couchsurfing. One that I never experienced, or found to be normal from many people i've talked to along the way.
Ok, I see the distinction you are making but....I think all women should operate under the assumption that if a man invites you into a private residence, for ANY reason, sex is on the menu. At least that way one is never (negatively) surprised. If I have daughters I think this is an important thing to drill into their heads. A guy says he wants to show you his collection of Warhammer 40,000 figures, at 1pm? You still won't be taken aback when he's suddenly pantsless.
>>>implying that it is any sort of norm is a very perverted view of couchsurfing. One that I never experienced, or found to be normal from many people i've talked to along the way.
I think my experience is just the opposite, but about 95% of my social circle is manwhores, the other 5% are males who aren't manwhores, but wish they were (a mix of younger, inexperienced officers or civilian IT/engineer guys). But this is why I'm on HN, to step outside of my bubble and exchange experiences with people with radically different backgrounds and perspectives.
>I think my experience is just the opposite, but about 95% of my social circle is manwhores
I get ya. Been there. I just feel we need to move from is implied consent. Couchsurfing and implying consent means the women either puts up with it (leveraged consent is ugly) or ends up on the streets. That is not good, and can be avoided if people are just more forward, even tactfully so. I suspect that this leverage is exactly why they choose the couchsurfing, and that mixed without transparency is ... eeesh, imo.
I'm not apart of the "tinder" generation per se, but I think the (at times gross) honesty is largely positive. People who scoff at the screen shots of people openly discussing sex are being prudish and don't understand that merely being transparent is a net positive.
I didn't mean it was sex for stay, just that for many people the whole experience was very much sexual. I mean, for crying out loud, it's a young, attractive woman going to stay at some dude's bachelor pad. Some people here must think women are so stupid. They know exactly what's going on.
I don't understand you here: that's the whole point of couchsurfing! You're staying with "real people", instead of yet another backpacker hostel
That's what laws are for. Shaping society so that it's like what we want rather than the jungle
> If you think women can afford to take the same risks as men when travelling
When did anyone in this thread ever say that?
> No, but if I were you I would at least consider that there might be a "misunderstanding" leading to you having to find alternative accommodation
I'd prefer to live in a world where I don't have to make that choice, hence society shunning people who would put others in that position
On which website and what country is this?
To anyone reading this -- that is absolutely NOT the norm, speaking as a dude who has hosted and couchsurfed a bit.
It's no less of a potential hookup app for women as it is for men. You don't think women want to me interesting guys to fuck? Else women wouldn't even stay with men. They already avoid the guys with bad reviews.
The moral flaw "the crowd" made was that it was men attempting to coerce sex from other men. Lot wanted to solve the problem by throwing his virgin daughters into the crowd.. which was apparently a perfectly righteous thing to do.
And anyways, that's why you shouldn't get your morality from an ancient book from a very different culture. Please don't throw any of your family members into crowds of rapists, it's not polite.
Let's not forget that hitting on someone is a continuum that ranges from flirtatious banter that you can enjoy with anyone to one's twisted idea of what hitting on someone entails that makes all their guests uncomfortable. Like asking "wanna fuck?"
Yes, hitting on someone in a way that makes them uncomfortable does make them uncomfortable and makes you a bad host. But I worry that you have an unhealthy understanding of flirting if you don't think it's something you or anyone can do without making someone else uncomfortable.
See: https://theconversation.com/whats-the-difference-between-sex...
One clue is that it's just focused on men flirting with women that's inappropriate here.
All I can gather is that some HNers need to find a new way to low-key flirt with people that doesn't make them(self) think "oh, this must be sexual harassment, this is bad".
1) hosting someone with no expectations, hitting it off and consensually getting together
2) hosting someone with the uncommunicated expectation they will sleep with you and pressuring someone alone in your house in a strange country until they consent.
People are cool with 1 and not with 2.
Human life however is not an infinite array of possibilities, but stay in very specific zones for most of the time.
Think about it; exponential behavior would propably be deemed bad for most things out there in code, but if you knew the iterations never peaked above 3, it doesen't apply. Much like in real life, you have concrete real values that never really change, unlike the abstract unknowable problems you're used to dealing with.
Keep in mind I'm a pretty big, able-bodied guy & at the time I was in my 20s. If I was a small woman living alone I may have skipped hosting single men.
The weird thing is, AirBnB came along, and I keep reading the sentence "nobody believed that hosting a stranger at home would work", which made me internally scream "but there's couchsurfing!!".
In fact, I think that Couchsurfing (the website/company) had a chance to become like AirBnB. They didn't. Maybe intentionally.
We let strangers into our homes, but not into our superuser shell. Why?
If Couchsurfing was truly about meeting people then the profiles wouldn't have gender and age on them. But they do.
That means that it's always potentially on the table any time you have human connection going on, couchsurfing included. Nothing about couchsurfing means this isn't happening or shouldn't be happening. It's just part of life and human connection.
After reading these comments, I do think that the miscommunication here is a lack of shared understanding of what flirting is.
I presume some people's imaginations immediately go to a host making guests uncomfortable by laying unwanted attention on thick, like the stereotype of the guy coming out in a short robe and hiking his leg up on the arm of the couch.
But I would like people who imagine that to know that most flirting lives in the banter area where both people are having a good time.
The basic idea is you stay at a stranger's place, or you host a stranger at yours - completely for free, no money involved. Everyone does it differently. Some people plan their trip meticulously months in advance and give arrival times to the minute, while others send a message at 9pm the same night asking if you're free. Some people ask to stay one night, some three, some far more; some bring bags of delicious food and artwork of their culture and some bring nothing.
I mostly host, and I've had all of the above - and then some. You have an incredibly diverse group of people. I've met artists, musicians, dancers - everyone from a Syrian man who lived under ISIS for years to an evangelical Christian woman who wanted to try shrooms.
The beautiful thing is that it's anything you want it to be. People have profiles that are often filled out with a good amount of detail (I usually skip the skimpy profiles) so you can pick out whoever or whatever you want. You want a pastry chef? You want a violinist? You want an architect? You want someone tidy and on-time or a hitchhiking hippie? Simply search for one to host or stay with.
The friendships and relationships I've made through Couchsurfing have been some of the best and most interesting I could have asked for. And the best part - you can do it all from home, traveling the world from the comfort of your couch.
Anyway, that's the beauty of it. I really hope that the network of people can be saved. Long term, I think it can, with something like BeWelcome, but of course it's a network effect problem - no hosts=no guests.
If anyone is curious about Couchsurfing (or wants to couchsurf my boat in the Netherlands - seriously, anyone is welcome, please come!) then feel free to send me an email (it's in my profile.)