The Pros and Cons of Couchsurfing

You might save thousands, but it’s not for everyone.

“Hello, Tristan? That’s quite a big bag you have there.” This is what David said to me when I showed up at his apartment in the middle of Paris last year, next to the “Hotel du Ville” Metro station. I had never met him in-person before this‒the only contact we had was two or three messages sent back and forth on Couchsurfing.com.

I stayed with David for a few days. He made some really good food, and I got to practice speaking French. He even showed me around his favourite neighbourhood. None of this cost me any money. Pretty good for one of my first times staying with a stranger.

Many of my friends are surprised when I tell them that I managed to travel around Europe a few months ago for 23 days, with only four of those nights spent in hotels. The rest were free.

Couchsurfing is similar to a social network or online dating site, in the sense that you set up a profile – the more detailed the better – and set yourself up to meet other people.

For many people, this concept is unnerving. In an attempt to address this, Couchsurfing uses a reference system where users can leave a positive or negative reference about their host, to encourage or warn future visitors. There’s also a neutral option, but it isn’t used often. If someone has at least 10 positive references, chances are high that they’re a good person to stay with–but always make sure to read their entire profile and make the final call yourself.

While in Paris, I ran into a pair of South Africans who were travelling around Europe: Dané du Preez and Christiaan Olivier. They chose Couchsurfing over hostels for a number of reasons.

“We have a low budget . . .  You experience different cultures and meet a lot of new people and they have something new to teach you,” says Olivier.

“And you get to know more people Couchsurfing, you can make friends for the future,” says du Preez.

They note that another plus is that compared to a hostel, you’ll tend to meet people from outside the country you’re visiting. That’s likely not the case with Couchsurfing.

“The mentality is different,” says Olivier. “In a hostel, there’s a financial reason, while in Couchsurfing there isn’t any, people genuinely want to help you and make a connection.”

Paris, where I met them, was only their second surf. Their first was in Brussels. “[We had a] very nice experience,” says du Preez. “We asked the guy at 10 o’clock at night if we could stay with him and he said yes. We got it at around 11 p.m., we talked and he was very nice.”

The benefits of Couchsurfing are primarily that you can stay somewhere for free, and meet someone that calls the city home. You’re in a foreign city to absorb the culture, and this is made easier if you are already staying with a local. Your experience will always be different, too–in my experience you get somewhere between a free hotel with free food and a nice person to chat with, or a free hotel with a tour guide.

However, there’s always a catch with these things. While Couchsurfing is free, you get what you pay for. Even with 10 positive references, it can be difficult to get a place to stay. For any given city, you should send out somewhere between 10 to 30 requests a week before you go, and hopefully one will stick. Statistically speaking, Amsterdam is easily the hardest place to Couchsurf, and given my experience, this is absolutely true. Conversely, Montreal was one of the easiest.

However, I’m a male, and there’s a surprising number of hosts who will only host women. Thus, it’s a lot easier if you’re female, but again the emphasis is to make sure you read their profile. I can’t speak for what women may have to deal with, but oftentimes women Couchsurfers will stay with other women, or travel with a friend/partner.

Even then, if you get a place, it might not be the most convenient location. While I was in Paris, I had the good fortune of meeting someone who gave me his place for four nights while he went away on business, so long as I took care of his cats. His apartment was luxurious, but it was in La Defense, and a 20-minute walk from the nearest Metro station.

When I stayed for my first night in Oslo, my female host had her boyfriend stay the first night with her. While I didn’t think anything of it, she explained to me a few days later that she did that in case her guest was a weirdo. Du Preez was in the same boat.

“Obviously you’re worried, but because I travel with Christiaan it’s not that bad for me, but I know some of my friends did it, and their experience wasn’t that nice. If I was travelling alone, I wouldn’t Couchsurf, personally. If I was alone, I’d be too scared.”

I stayed with Jen Gebhardt when I was in Berlin. She took some time to show me around Mitte, the area of the city that she lived in. With 50 positive references, I asked her about her experience Couchsurfing as a woman. “The first two years, I was just a host,” she says. “I’ve surfed New York, Boston, Chicago twice. Philly, Edinburgh, one night in Köln, yeah about seven times, but I’ve hosted at least double.”

“I had one dodgy host. He left a neutral reference on my profile, but I had a really bad feeling while I was there. I left after the first night . . . instead of three nights. I left him a neutral reference after debating it for a long time, and he had a very good profile, but I could just tell something was off.”

“I had two or three or four people privately messaging me saying they had seen the reference I left for him, and that they agreed with me . . . which lead me to thinking ‘Wow, that’s rubbish. If you had left a reference, I would have never ended up in that situation.’ But . . . nothing bad happened, I trust my intuition. I was very unhappy with that experience. It was the only bad experience I had in regards to surfing.”

“I’ve stayed with males before. I was in a house with lots of guys, sleeping in the living room. I’ve never felt unsafe and I’m really easygoing anyway,” she elaborates. “So it wasn’t the fact that I had to share a room with him, just that he was creepy. It just showed me that the system didn’t really work. You need to have a way to leave confidential messages as well. If there was someone at Couchsurfing reading those messages. This way people wouldn’t have to worry about losing their perfect scores.”

Gebhardt is referring to the fact that all references you make or receive are public. If you leave a negative reference for someone, that host/surfer will see it, and can reply to it if they want to. “I already had 50 positive references, so I didn’t really care.”

She’s unsure of the alternative.

“I have to stay with a girl or a couple to make sure I’m safe? That’s not the way it should work.”

From a hosting perspective, Gebhardt gave some tips on why she might reject a request. “Why would I accept your request if you have no references and an empty profile? You might as well walk up to somebody on the street and ask them if you can stay with them.”

Regardless, Gebhardt found that her experience as a surfer was positive overall. “Everyone else was not just fine, I would say that 90 per cent of my hosts were… Incredible. So much so that I’m friends with some of them still, and visit them occasionally.”