Couchsurfing

When I first heard about this thing called 'couchsurfing', like many, I was a little dubious. What was all this going around and foisting yourself on strangers? Wasn't it just something smelly hardcore travellers did, taking a kip wherever they could find it? Wasn't it a bit dodgy and most likely dangerous? So we hadn't given it much consideration for this trip, until a friend of ours suggested we looked into it. So we did. I had a look on the website (www.couchsurfing.org) and discovered this online community I hadn't been expecting. And as a result of joining this community, we've had some of our best travelling experiences of the journey.

What happens is you sign up and create a profile. You decide how keen you are to share your couch (or spare room, or whatever) with others, or whether you just want to meet for a coffee or drink or something (there's no obligation). You describe your couch and what you're offering - then you're away. If you're travelling, you set your status to 'travelling' and browse the other users' profiles to find someone you'd like to stay with. Then you send them a nice wee request message and hope they might have space for you (no-one is allowed to charge for accommodation, it's all free). If you're not travelling and you have a couch available, you will (hopefully!) receive requests from other travellers - but again, there's no obligation to host someone you're not sure about!

Couchsurfing has a great safety system so that all users feel like they can make an informed decision about who they let into their homes, or stay with. Your own profile builds up verifications and vouches, depending who's met you and has decided you're trustworthy. You also send and receive references from people you've hosted or surfed with along the way. Reading people's references lets you know whether a person is safe, but more often than not they simply convey a person's enthusiasm about their experience with another surfer. That's the thing about couchsurfing - the disingenuous are weeded out pretty quickly by one bad reference, and everyone else involved is involved because they have a genuine love of the ideal of free travel and cultural exchange. Most people out there are pretty great. Well, most people we've met so far at least!

The important thing to remember is that couchsurfing isn't just about free accommodation (which can be a lifesaver to the budget traveller), it's about meeting people and understanding another way of life. The thing we   were most concerned about finding when we were travelling was local contacts. We didn't want to just exist within the tourist bubble - we wanted to know what actual local people were like and what it was like to live in a place. When we were initially planning this trip we'd assumed this ideal would be pretty hard to come by, but lo and behold! That's exactly what couchsurfing is for. I feel that if you treat the network as simply a way to get free accommodation, you miss the point. What's more, people will feel taken advantage of and you'll miss out on so much. There are so many different people of every age, interest, and occupation - so take advantage of this and get to know them!

As well as meeting travellers when hosting and locals when you're on the road, couchsurfing makes up a local community. There are regular meet-ups of couchsurf enthusiasts in lots of places. So even if you're not surfing, you can find a base of friendly people (which might be a lifesaver if you've just moved somewhere and don't know anyone). What I feel about couchsurfing is that it's more than just free accommodation. It's more than just cultural exchange, even. It's good for the soul. I've found that spending time with new, generous people injects new life into me and revives my positive spirit. I suppose it reminds me to keep faith in humanity in a world that is so full of paranoia and general crapness. It shows that even with all that goes on in society today, you can still rely on the kindness of strangers.