Myself and a friend are looking to Couchsurf in Paris, so that we can attend dotJS 2013 and it made me wonder, how many of you HNers are also couch surfers? If so, what have your experiences been like?
I haven't couchsurfed myself but I've hosted couchsurfers twice. The first time it was three young Russians bicycling through Finland. They stayed one night, cooked food and we chatted for a few hours. The next day I took them on a few hours sailing trip. The second time it was an Italian guy who I and a couple of friends showed around town and he then stayed the night on my boat. Both experiences were mutually positive.
But I stopped after a few crazy-guests. Not horrible experiences, but enough to make me decide I had no desire to do so again. I'd often considered surfing, but since I deleted my profile it seemed a little cheap to look for a place to crash when I wasn't reciprocating myself.
These days it seems there are several alternatives to couchsurfing.com, with a less "corporate" feel to them.
I've been CouchSurfing quite a bit a few years ago, in particular when I was in Rio. Because of an unfortunate sequence of events I found myself having to hop from emergency couch to emergency couch for the first four weeks, usually staying at one place for a few days, and occasionally staying in a hostel to get some relative privacy.
Every host was nice, and even if we didn't 'click' it was still a great experience. And after four weeks of that I realized that I'd stayed in many corners of the city, knew a lot of the best places in those areas because my hosts would show me around, and felt like I'd lived there for much longer than just a month.
I can definitely recommend it as part of traveling, or even part of relocation. The occasional discomfort is offset by really getting to know a place quickly.
I used to quite often until it became too commercialized and bloated in terms of community and service both, now this looks like a promising alternative - http://www.bewelcome.org/.
Hey, I'm on couchsurfing and live in Paris, I live in a rather big apartment (for Paris standards) with 2 roommates, if you want you could stay at my place, check my profil for contact details.
I've had fantastic experiences both surfing in Europe, and hosting back in Boston. Be smart, be careful, but most importantly - be prepared to meet some fantastic people.
[+] [-] spurgu|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stevekemp|12 years ago|reply
But I stopped after a few crazy-guests. Not horrible experiences, but enough to make me decide I had no desire to do so again. I'd often considered surfing, but since I deleted my profile it seemed a little cheap to look for a place to crash when I wasn't reciprocating myself.
These days it seems there are several alternatives to couchsurfing.com, with a less "corporate" feel to them.
[+] [-] mercer|12 years ago|reply
Every host was nice, and even if we didn't 'click' it was still a great experience. And after four weeks of that I realized that I'd stayed in many corners of the city, knew a lot of the best places in those areas because my hosts would show me around, and felt like I'd lived there for much longer than just a month.
I can definitely recommend it as part of traveling, or even part of relocation. The occasional discomfort is offset by really getting to know a place quickly.
[+] [-] pattt|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toumhi|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saddestcatever|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] esusatyo|12 years ago|reply