I love CS! I have made tons of best friends, both male and female from around the world. I hosted a lot (max of upto 20 ppl one night in Mysore India!) and surfed a bit on my travels and best is when you get hosted by your ex surfers!!
Monetizing couch surfing and providing the option of Joining via Facebook screwed up couch surfing according to me- the philosophy was lost. Earlier it was about travel, culture/ lifestyle experiencing platform, and had a word-of-mouth/kind of exclusive feel to it - you'd meet genuine people who took the effort to research online and find this forum. It was more genuine and with no expectations. I was very private about couch surfing, never posted stuff about it on my normal social media sites and never wanted to be famous for it. Soon after the Facebook link and those paid for profiles (green tick mark!! Ughh) all sorts of people ended up joining CS. In many countries, ppl are not aware of sensibilities and especially in a country like India, where women are stared at (even by my own friends! ) I had to keep a low profile. It was so so so hard to patiently educate friends, neighbours and family about basic concepts of travel, backpacking, alternative lifestyles.... Once Facebook got included, people found out and it became like a platform for users to brag about the girl they hosted and show off!! Yuck... BTW, I am an Indian guy telling you about hosting all the chillest open minded ppl in a small indian town! So trust me, it got BAD once non genuine ppl found out about CS! It's become commercial, about getting laid, and mostly all the cool vibe ppl are harder to filter through among the zillions of morons. It's become harder to connect now.
I hope couch surfing survives, maybe make some whole sale changes.
I love CS! I have made tons of best friends, both male and female from around the world. I hosted a lot (max of upto 20 ppl one night in Mysore India!) and surfed a bit on my travels and best is when you get hosted by your ex surfers!!
Monetizing couch surfing and providing the option of Joining via Facebook screwed up couch surfing according to me- the philosophy was lost. Earlier it was about travel, culture/ lifestyle experiencing platform, and had a word-of-mouth/kind of exclusive feel to it - you'd meet genuine people who took the effort to research online and find this forum. It was more genuine and with no expectations. I was very private about couch surfing, never posted stuff about it on my normal social media sites and never wanted to be famous for it. Soon after the Facebook link and those paid for profiles (green tick mark!! Ughh) all sorts of people ended up joining CS. In many countries, ppl are not aware of sensibilities and especially in a country like India, where women are stared at (even by my own friends! ) I had to keep a low profile. It was so so so hard to patiently educate friends, neighbours and family about basic concepts of travel, backpacking, alternative lifestyles.... Once Facebook got included, people found out and it became like a platform for users to brag about the girl they hosted and show off!! Yuck... BTW, I am an Indian guy telling you about hosting all the chillest open minded ppl in a small indian town! So trust me, it got BAD once non genuine ppl found out about CS! It's become commercial, about getting laid, and mostly all the cool vibe ppl are harder to filter through among the zillions of morons. It's become harder to connect now.
I hope couch surfing survives, maybe make some whole sale changes.
Stay safe everyone. Have a good time! ~*~