I guess the major flaw of couchsurfing all these years was to not actively watch the community, to not offer an incentive to people become hosts and to not care about those freeloaders that will create an account a week before their trip and delete the account as soon as holiday is over.
When i started using couchsurfing I spent a whole year hosting, attending to meetings, before even plan my own trips. But more recently i saw the community changing and more and more freeloaders joining in while the hosts kept in place and later on after they created the "meeting" feature in the app the tinder for tourists kinds getting around…. Thank you so much for this informative article. I've always put CS out there to anyone willing to listen, and have established strong relationships with hundreds of people and groups.
I'll send them your article. I discovered your article when I mentioned CS in a magazine interview. An acquaintance mentioned she first had to pay the fee! I'm like, What Fee! So I googled and found your article … wow. Is there any platforms you might recommend? I put some out on fb and youtube. I'm looking at wordpress.
Idea's anyone? Hi Assata! I think Trustroots is owned by some guy from Estonia who maybe hopes to get rich. Just an idea,I could be wrong. Thank you for all this information! I never knew Couchsurfing started because of high prices in Iceland. Since then I have hosted countless couchsurfers from all over the world and gone to many meetups while travelling.
I never used it for my own accommodation but I probably hosted a total of over nights. Many booked a couple of nights through Couchsurfing and ended up staying for a few weeks. Others have booked the first time through CS and then directly through me times.
The longest stay of a CS guest was almost for months, even though the original request was only for a couple of nights. Like you said hosting can cost quite a lot of money and I don't care about a penny of that cost but why on earth should I pay someone who I have no idea who is, to host guests for free? I currently have a couchsurfer staying with me but he is probably the last one. I think I might have promised someone they could stay here before the end of the year and a few maybes for next year but now I have no way to contact them.
I keep getting email messages from CS saying someone posted something in events or sent me a message but I refuse to pay a fee to unlock my account. If there had been some kind of a warning, saying this would start in a few weeks or months, and an explanation about what the money is needed for, I probably would have paid up. My account was supposed to be verified well into next year. I just noticed that you posted this earlier this year, I only got locked out last week.
I have been verified for years because I'm always hosting but I read in FB comments that even people who had paid lifetime fees or just paid for one year were also locked out now. I'll be sharing it! Hey, I wanted to ask you what are your thought on the vouching system that they had. It was pretty great why? Why they would discontinue that? Great article. I miss the old days but excited about what's coming next. Thank you and have a great day! I had become an active host on Couchsurfing two summers ago after not using my account which I created back in For all of the reasons stated, I too loved the platform.
It gave me an ability to give and connect with others whereas I never would have had the opportunities without it. I just feel betrayed upon opening my profile the other day only to find that I've been shut out by a pay wall. I had a verified free membership for a few more months after hosting some surfers in recent months. There were messages that were left without an opportunity to finish communication with others that are now lost. The way that this was handled is just wrong. Thank you for the detailed breakdown of how, who and the probability of why this has happened Bren.
It's disappointing but, it's most likely the reality of where Couchsurfing management and ownership are. Although the money isn't an issue for me, I am a man of principle and I won't be strong armed into paying for something that has been driven into the ground by people who are motivated by making big profits.
We're in a pandemic and leisurely travel is almost completely shut down. Why would anyone want to pay for something that they don't need given the inability to travel? I predict this will be the demise of Couchsurfing as many will feel similarly about a taxation-like tactic. Especially when other options available for people to connect through. Why stay? Found this article today when I got locked out. Apparently this happened a year ago but I never experienced it as I had a verified profile which seems to have given me a one year of free pass.
This explains why the site has been so terrible and with no activity in the last year though… Reverting to BeWelcome…. It seems it was a year ago they started to ask money, on the dot that is. May 14th Today it's May 14th , and yesterday I could not get into my year account, because again it was blocked by a banner asking for money. I removed my account. I do not own a PayPal, nor a Credit card!
There are other parts on this globe CS. Bren, thank you for writing such a detailed and heartfelt account of Couchsurfing and the incidents leading up to the current state of things. As someone new to CS, I will be sure to keep this all in mind, especially the alternatives like NomadList.
I do hope that the CS community finds a new path soon. Thank you so much for spending time writing this article. I used to use CS and made great ppl around the world. I have not been travelling since and was surprised CS are asking for money. Same as you, i am happy to contribute if i clearly know it is going to benefit all the hosts and volunteers. I don't know why people are missing the point that Couchsurfing was supposed to be free. It is the generous hosts who allow us for free or for something in kind.
This is nothing like the corruption in third world countries where developed countries donate money for clothes and the corrupt officials instead of giving it free take money from the poor to get it. Like 5 dollars for dollars worth of stuff. They say you can pay that much you are getting it free. But the officials is already getting salary for doing the job. Yes a website costs money but you have so many users it is very easy to monetize a website with so many users easily that would have been more than enough would have made the owner or company a billionaire soon.
But this is greed. I am sure someone has crunched numbers and done a machine prediction of how many would leave and how many would stay. There are people who do trips in a year for them 25 dollars is nothing.
Those who travel even once a year they end up staying for at least 10 days so its only 2. And ofcourse the experience of CS meeting hosts and living as one of the locals is priceless. So they have crunched numbers and they know they would be making more money with this extortion easily rather than work hard and think creatively to monetize the website in other ways.
I am not sure if hosts charge but if they did then CS could have charged them a huge commission for it. Not only are CS asking for a fee, but it looks like they've been applying stringent censorship on their site since then too… Many people are complaining that their account has been suspended because of mentioning BeWelcome or TrustRoots on their profile, or even in a private message.
And I've seen some reports saying they don't allow sharing email address or phone number unless a hosting request through their tool has already been accepted. Note: I saw all those reports on BeWelcome, where many disgruntled members have migrated. Some CS-bashing can't be excluded, but there are enough reports from different people that I trust most of it to be true.
Besides, the paywall has been up for a year, but there are still many people who were not affected until May because of being verified or having paid for lifetime subscription and who had not even heard about it until they got locked out too! That's saying something about how tightly they control information. As far I remember couch surfing was something you did free. That was the idea you didn't pay for it or you paid it in kind or some service to the host.
This yearly charge kind of defeats the purpose. I don't why you didn't bring that part up. Since the host are not charging guests so they won't pay anything. So basically CS is simply extorting money for their service from guests or couchsurfers. They should have figured out a way to make money with ads and so many other way to monetize This is just blackmailing users to pay for what they could have done free.
I hope a clone comes out. Yeah the excuse is verification but how much can we trust them and if that was a verification charge then why charge it monthly or yearly you verify a person once and then hosts will rate them. They could have …well I am not going to give those greedy scum free ideas to make money..
There was a lot they could have done especially with the platform they had. Since it was free they could have asked ………. I see a clone coming in soon that promised to be free and I am sure I am not the smartest guy on the planet if I could come up with so many ways to make money on this platform I am sure others can too. They would literally die if CS was not around so all that sob story about the pandemic and not being able to meet their expenses is BS.
They were just waiting for the right time. Now that is an understatement. The reason they had to wait for the "right time" was because they knew this is a borderline scam and extortions. They knew that they could shut down as a clone would rise from the sidelines and take over their business. The best analogy to understand why this is a scam.
There is a website that connects poor children with donors who would sponsor their education and meals. These websites run on Donations the analogy is not perfect because it would be hard to monetize this website as the children are not potential consumers and the donors are but the numbers are very less and most of the time it is a one time donation so its hard to monetize that in comparison Couch surfers had way more people just surfing their website ogling at the locations, that alone could have bought them so much Ad revenue.
Tomorrow if they started charging the Children a monthly or yearly fee to get "verified" that they are genuinely in need ofcourse there are many ways to directly pay money to the school but you this "verification is BS and they have to keep paying as the donations are yearly or semester wise. Then what would you say. There are enough people who could have donated.
Maybe there are but they are greedy. People would fine it almost inhumane if they said "these children are getting rupees worth of education so why can't they pay rupees. Its not like their extremely poor and they can arrange for rupees easily.
I think this is similar though not as dire or as fraudulent as a donation website. But yes couch surfing was supposed to be free. That was the idea so you are coming in between the host who is giving it for free and extorting money from the surfer for availing that free service.
Yes a better analogy would be corruption in a country like India. Where if there is anything given free from the govt there are officials in charge who will charge the citizens a bribe to avail that freebie even though they get paid a salary from the govt to do their job.
I used it when I travel and I helped in Berlin for Events for many years… It is just sad… I just got recently active again and was a Pioneer and early contributor… Now I got the Payroll and wrote to the support. RIP Couchsurfing. I am not paying money for hosting people. I am not paying money for sharing values of friendship and Couchsurfing spirit. I got in on the ground floor with the hospitality exchanges in I was a member of globalfreeloaders.
I've hosted hundreds of people, and I always provided a personalized itinerary and food for my guests. When I traveled abroad, I knew how good it felt to arrive from a long journey to the smell of a good meal.
Hospitalityclub, founded by a German guy named Veit, really seemed to embrace the backpacking spirit the best. In fact, I hosted Veit at my place in Los Angeles once and he told me the long story about how he reached out to Casey at one point wanting to merge membership platforms but Casey always had a profit track in mind whereas Veit always wanted to keep it free. They were fundamentally incompatible. When Airbnb started to become a thing, I saw it as a paid version of the hospitality platforms but that's really not what it is at all.
It seems there's an expectation now that you'll never meet your host, which to me feels really strange. Although under the right circumstances, it is pretty wonderful. A few years ago I traveled through New Zealand with my in-laws and having our own houses to stay at really did feel great. Couchsurfing, in comparison to hospitality club, always felt like it provided a lot more of the freeloader type of traveler, who just needed a place to stay and wasn't interested in meeting people.
I realized I had to start vetting my guests pretty strictly in order to ensure that they understood that hospitality exchange was about both parties benefiting from the experience.
Be fair, I never did get much into the community groups. I always saw it as being very much a one-on-one experience. Those times that I got involved in group couch surfing activities I felt the experience was diluted and I just didn't enjoy it as much. We haven't hosted in quite a while, not just because of covid but because we have a baby now. We also have a house that could very comfortably accommodate one or two travelers so I would like to get back into it at some point but I'm not sure where to go.
Since CS locked me out of my account, and hospitality club is still open but hasn't been updated in an extremely long time and is very much a relic of the early s when it was built. I'll check out bewelcome and see where that goes, I am rather sad that all of my contacts on CS are effectively being held from me. And even if I did write to them, what is the likelihood that they'll pay to bring down the paywall on their end?
Thank you so much for this thorough explanation. I used Couchsurfing for years and had some super memorable experiences around the world — including meeting someone I had a romantic relationship with… by staying on his couch. He played Gregory Alan Isakov while he made breakfast and I've never forgotten that. I live close to Gregory's farm now here in Colorado.
Couchsurfing has been woven into my backpacking and nomadic experiences. I'm so sad to hear that this has what happened. I noticed the change when trying to look for people to stay with in Joshua Tree, as I'm going there for a ceremony from July I am all for paying money for all kinds of things that are of value to me, but when it comes to traveling and staying together, I feel all of the money going to Airbnb is getting exorbitant.
I would love to host people here in Boulder, Colorado and receive hosting in return — the good old fashioned generosity and trust that what goes around comes around — within community. Thank you so much for this lengthy explanation. I'm super thankful and will not be paying this fee either to re-access my account. So sorry to see it go after all these years. Great article! I've been using hospitalityclub ages ago, then came CS era, which was amazing at least at the beginning.
And now I feel like there's just a huge void with nothing to replace CS on similar scale. Multiple instances being reported in the Facebook groups. I was a longtime host in London and agree re the direction of travel of CS. I run a fintech and operating costs are more than management using AWS etc. I enjoyed your analysis which was spot on. I think the final insult, if that was possible, was a demand that I pay to download my own data! I am new to the Couchsurfing scene was always traveling on Airbnb etc.
Thankfully, your blog post gave me a gut feel of what happened, was great in the past and where to look for the future.
Please keep up the good work! After all comments, I went to check out their blog. So very sad about this. Couchsurfing is a community, not a website. They can kill the website, which they somehow did. If anyone works for Couchers. I'm an alumni of a student org. I am also very computer literate.
We can figure this out, for a fraction of a cost, that people think it takes for 14MIL of data… it doesn't take science fiction. All technologies are already out there. I haven't used Couchsurfing in a couple years, but even in the past starting from Hospitality Club I only surfed a few times and mainly used CS to meet up with people one-on-one.
But CS was perfect for finding people who could give local context about places where I was traveling. So much more relaxing to plan a meetup with a person whose profile interested me, rather than hoping to randomly encounter interesting people.
I often met CSers who had only references because they were the only member in a way off-the-beaten-track place. I don't have much interest in meeting expats or other tourists unless they're the only option in that area, but a network as big as CS was more likely to be familiar to locals even in small towns.
I didn't hear about this fee until I tried logging in today, then found your explanation of what happened. Would love to know—one year later—if you or anyone else reading this have found that any of the alternative sites listed have penetrated remote areas, and seem equally conducive to meet-ups rather than surfing? Although by most reports, CS itself has hardly any action right now as well. I suppose that reduced activity could mainly be a pandemic effect, unrelated to the new fee.
It hadn't even occurred to me to log in until the other day, due to less travel and the fact that even though I only used it for meetups, other people were definitely using it to sleep in strangers' homes and that is probably way less appealing since March Thanks anyway! Thank you Bren for explaining the current situation of CS. Couchsurfing, what an amazing concept, originally promoted as a social community not a freeloading society it did though provide poor travelers a passage way to visit places they ordinarily would not have the funds for.
It was good for me in the beginning at my remote station to meet and engage with energetic young people, I can't talk to folk my own age they are just too damn grumpy.
Couchsurfing was already dying a slow death when Covid swooped down and moved the goalposts for any budget traveler looking for a couch. Unfortunately now it makes no sense for an old man like me to host travelers who have just passed through multiple households or hostels on the way to my place.
Hotels and Guest House prices have posted significant increases in rates this year which is a double whammy for the backpackers. I look forward to the day when we can safely restart the budget travel scene, well relatively safely?
Hopefully this new couchers. The spirit has not died. Wow, this was superbly written and struck my heart in so many ways. I was a pretty active member in that "golden years" era — many friends were made, a couple of relationships happened, and so so many memories created.
I haven't been active for six or seven years now, but when I checked the site for a recent trip across Canada… I was a little surprised. I received no responses. I tried to verify my address but by the time I got the postcard, I see today that I've been locked out again, pending another donation. So sad, but I think that's it for me! Thanks for taking the time to write this post.
I used couchsurfing very actively for hosting, meeting, surfing at the beginning. Then later I would mainly just use the forum to ask local opinion. It is a shame that it all ended up this way.. What a shame. I traveled solo around the world from and used CS heavily.
It changed my entire trip and life really. The easy friendships I made and bonds I shared elevated solo travel in a way I never imagined. I too was an ambassador of it sharing thoughts on my blog and even in travel articles like one I wrote for the Chicago Tribune about it. Thanks for your post and for the suggestions of other similar orgs. Hi there, I've been a member of CS since yes almost 20years!
After that it was a series of deceptions, some of them you mentionned. Trying to log-in today was still a surprise as that kind of pay-to-log-in threat is sure to infuriate most. This actually gives me hope as I believe the death of CS would leave some space for something new and hopefully better.
We'd like to try your home cooking, as well. Last but not least I'm a gourmand so I can show the the best places where to taste great local food even in an off beaten track!
Our house is near train station, so it will help you with your mobility. I'd be very happy to get souvenirs from your own country such as postcards, bookmarks,miniature of perfume, freezer magnet, or snacks.
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Choose from straight up hostels, budget hotels and bed and breakfasts. Trusted Housesitters — Save money on travel accommodation by becoming a housesitter. Housesitters often have extra duties, like caring for pets and gardens. I was part of an earlier group pre-Couchsurfing called Servas, which operated under much the same idea. I had a couple of great experiences, several awkward ones, and many strange ones.
I finally decided it was better to just pay a bit to stay at a hostel — it just seemed easier. Pin this 0 Share 0 Tweet 0. What You'll Learn hide. What is Couchsurfing? How does Couchsurfing work? Create a Couchsurfing Profile. The Couchsurfing App. Is Couchsurfing Safe? Tips for Couchsurfing Safety 1. Verify and Check Profiles. Reconfirm Details. Meet Beforehand.
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