CouchSurfing: Personal Experiences
This is part two of my CouchSurfing series. Check out part one here.While I'm not exactly a seasoned, dyed-in-the-wool CSer (I don't attend CS meetups, and Montreal is so popular that I almost never get asked to host), I have had numerous encounters with fellow surfers (either as a host or as a friend of the host), my friends have used couchsurfing while traveling, and I have met up with several couchsurfers in the course of my own travels. What I've learned is this:
1) Strangers almost immediately become incredibly trusting, trustworthy, and helpful friends.
2) There are bad experiences on CS.
3) A single couchsurfing experience can transform the least pleasant trip into a nostalgia-inducing memory. Let me expand on each of these.Strangers almost immediately become incredibly trusting, trustworthy, and helpful friends.
Once someone has made the commitment to host you or meet up with you, they are accommodating to the utmost. My hosts have switched shifts, postponed plans, hurried tattoo appointments, and woken up early to drive me to the airport on time. They invariably check regularly to make sure I am at ease and having fun, apologize for their friends, and feel bad at having other priorities in their lives than me. Another friend of mine, while travelling in Vietnam with no knowledge of the language, ended up in a rural village because his hosts wanted to show him their hometown. People want to make sure you have an amazing visit any way they can. There are bad experiences on CS.
In the past week or two I have heard for the first time about negative experiences with hosts. As a single girl who travels alone, it is extremely useful to know that some people use CouchSurfing to find one-night stands. Provided you are extremely clear with strangers that you are not interested in being shown that kind of good time, CouchSurfing is generally a safe environment, and as a friend pointed out, a negative reference pretty much guarantees that person will never host or be hosted again. Like any other place, CS has its share of sketchballs, and while in real life you are frequently without recourse when people behave in transgressive ways, on CS you can warn others. A single couchsurfing experience can transform the least pleasant trip into a nostalgia-inducing memory.
A good couchsurfing experience is more than just a couch to stay on or a couple of dollars saved on accommodation. CouchSurfing hosts provide a gateway into the social life of a city. They know which bar is host to open mic nights. what microbrewery produces the best beer, and which is the best live music venue. They know what neighburhoods to avoid after dark and how to cheat the local transit system. When you have no friends in a city and no guidebook, CS hosts can tell you what museums are worth the entry cost, and draw you into their circle of friends for a dinner or a beer. A friend of mine moved to Australia to work as an au pair, and had zero connections there. She has built an entire friend circle through local couchsurfing communities, attending meetups, bonfires, joining classes with fellow CSers, and taking trips together. CS is like a codeword to be let into an insta-community, a loose aggregation of people who are open. CouchSurfing is one of the most interesting examples of how ideas about privacy and openness are transformed on the internet: while there are still ways to keep private information private, CS is really about learning to embrace openness in your personal life offline as well as in your interactions online.
1) Strangers almost immediately become incredibly trusting, trustworthy, and helpful friends.
2) There are bad experiences on CS.
3) A single couchsurfing experience can transform the least pleasant trip into a nostalgia-inducing memory. Let me expand on each of these.Strangers almost immediately become incredibly trusting, trustworthy, and helpful friends.
Once someone has made the commitment to host you or meet up with you, they are accommodating to the utmost. My hosts have switched shifts, postponed plans, hurried tattoo appointments, and woken up early to drive me to the airport on time. They invariably check regularly to make sure I am at ease and having fun, apologize for their friends, and feel bad at having other priorities in their lives than me. Another friend of mine, while travelling in Vietnam with no knowledge of the language, ended up in a rural village because his hosts wanted to show him their hometown. People want to make sure you have an amazing visit any way they can. There are bad experiences on CS.
In the past week or two I have heard for the first time about negative experiences with hosts. As a single girl who travels alone, it is extremely useful to know that some people use CouchSurfing to find one-night stands. Provided you are extremely clear with strangers that you are not interested in being shown that kind of good time, CouchSurfing is generally a safe environment, and as a friend pointed out, a negative reference pretty much guarantees that person will never host or be hosted again. Like any other place, CS has its share of sketchballs, and while in real life you are frequently without recourse when people behave in transgressive ways, on CS you can warn others. A single couchsurfing experience can transform the least pleasant trip into a nostalgia-inducing memory.
A good couchsurfing experience is more than just a couch to stay on or a couple of dollars saved on accommodation. CouchSurfing hosts provide a gateway into the social life of a city. They know which bar is host to open mic nights. what microbrewery produces the best beer, and which is the best live music venue. They know what neighburhoods to avoid after dark and how to cheat the local transit system. When you have no friends in a city and no guidebook, CS hosts can tell you what museums are worth the entry cost, and draw you into their circle of friends for a dinner or a beer. A friend of mine moved to Australia to work as an au pair, and had zero connections there. She has built an entire friend circle through local couchsurfing communities, attending meetups, bonfires, joining classes with fellow CSers, and taking trips together. CS is like a codeword to be let into an insta-community, a loose aggregation of people who are open. CouchSurfing is one of the most interesting examples of how ideas about privacy and openness are transformed on the internet: while there are still ways to keep private information private, CS is really about learning to embrace openness in your personal life offline as well as in your interactions online.
