CouchSurfing

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I have recently been intrigued by the CouchSurfing website.

It's a website which offers free accommodation to travellers around the world, by means of home stays (presumably sleeping on people's couches). You can use the site to find accommodation, or host acommodation. It's obviously good not just for finding free accommodation, but for networking and making friends while travelling.

It's so popular that there are about 800,000 members, the majority of whom are available to host accommodation.

Now, it is not something I would try, either as a host or a traveller. I'd imagine it's mostly safe enough from what I've seen. There is a reference and "vouching" system on the site, and the people tend to be studenty/traveller types. But I could not stay with or host complete strangers. Knowing how troublesome it was for me to share flats, which I had to do as a student, I just couldn't do this. It just seems to me that hosting or travelling on CouchSurfing would require the social skills to get on with virtually anyone at any time, since you'll be sharing living space with someone you don't even know.

But the intriguing thing for me was, I noticed straight away the type of people who are on the site, and the type of places that are to the fore. As I say they tend to be studenty people, or people who are travelling or like to travel - a very liberal type of person. With the type of people, college/university towns and cities are especially to the fore. This looks like something that's for very liberal people. But I noticed straight away the ratio of population in more studenty/liberal places, compared to more off the beaten track/conservative areas.

In Edinburgh, there is a ratio of 1 in 400 of the population on CouchSurfing. In Glasgow it's about 1 in 750. It's about 1 in 200 in the university town of St. Andrews. Contrast that with some of the more socially conservative areas in Scotland. Galloway has about 1 in 14,000. There's about 1 in 20,000 in Aberdeenshire (outside of the city of Aberdeen). In north-east Aberdeenshire (Buchan - arguably Scotland's most socially conservative area) and east Aberdeenshire, the social conservatism is such that there are NO CouchSurfers in an area of at least 70,000 people. That's by far the largest swathe of Scotland, population wise, devoid of CouchSurfers.

In England, Oxford and Cambridge as well as the particularly liberal town of Brighton have about 1 in 250.

In America, San Francisco and Seattle are two examples of particularly liberal cities. They have about 1 in 225 CouchSurfers. But in the rural/conservative areas I looked at, two neighbouring counties in rural north-west Indiana have 1 in about 35,000. A group of five counties in south-east Mississippi have 1 in 70,000. Two neighbouring counties in rural South Carolina have NONE in nearly 110,000. There will be many more examples like this. Starker differences than in Scotland.

I've been on CS for two or three years now. I think it's quite possibly the greatest thing to ever happen to the internet ever. EVER


It's such a great way to socialise, and I can't even describe right now how much I've learned about human interation from CS. I've been doing a lot of travelling over the past two years meeting lots of other CSers. I haven't stayed on a whole load of couches, but that's the beauty of it, it's so much more than accomodation. Some people join for free accomodation and make little contribution to the community, but the other people - the kind of people who let strangers from the internet stay on their couches, are some of the greatest characters I've ever met. They embrace diversity. Be honest about yourself and forget about this artificial division between AS and NT.

What are your plans? Would you like to travel with it, host, meet people?

None of the above. It struck me right away that CSers tend to be the type of people who embrace diversity. Even so, in other ways there's a lot that isn't diverse.

What I mean is, taking Edinburgh for example, the CSers here tend to be Americans, Australians etc., especially Poles. They are not local people, they are not people who come from Edinburgh. To me, if I was say an American and wanted to visit Edinburgh, the point of going to Edinburgh would be to experience the local culture, local people, local life, not people who are from anywhere but Edinburgh.

Looking at various small towns in Scotland, virtually every CSer there is from continental Europe or further afield. Again, if I wanted to go there and stay with CS, not exactly a local experience.

More importantly, the people are indeed strangers. I'm not even thinking on an AS/NT paradigm. I can't even see most NT's just going to stay with or hosting a stranger from the Internet.

I totally agree.

I'm on Hospitality Club (same thing as CS) as a host and although I don't have guests too often (my hometown is not exactly a desirable holiday destination :p) when I do, they are always really cool people and I never had any trouble with anyone.

I really hope to use it one day when I go travelling again.

All the scots are proabably in Poland and Australia . I think it's more likely for a foreigner to become a CS host because (s)he's more likely to have travelled. And it's agreat way to get to know people if you end up in a new city.


I think the opposite. When I was living in Jerusalem, an Israeli asked to stay on my couch becsue he'd visited my hometown in Ireland and stayed with Polish people. I suppose he'll go to Polad next and stay with an Israeli. It's all about fresh perspectives

Should you join, you're more than welcome to surf my couch in France

I prefer staying in hotels.

Yeah me too. I like the little soaps they give you.

And I'm much too paranoid to stay with a stranger for fear of being raped or murdered. Really I trust no one.

I stayed at one persons house in Vienna. actually, it was not a house, it was a freaking loft. they had a jacuzzi and craploads of expensive cool soaps and lotions, plus a huge fridge full with food and a booze cabinet full of 24-year old whiskys, the best soundsystem imaginable, plasma screens etc. it was pretty luxurious.

they left me and friends the keys and let us stay there and use all the stuff for a week while they were away, and that was 2 days after they met us. we met those people on the internet shortly before.

omg i hate hotels, i feel like im living in an office building , is hard to explain (the soaps are the good stuff)

couchsurfing/hospitalityclub is awesome, though ive irritated some hosts with my social skills jajaja

That sounds so cool! I would absolutely love to do something like that!

The only problem is, my parents are so overprotective of me that they would rather die than allow me to do something like that. Not to mention the costs of flying and such (I don't have a job).