Thoughts & Experiences: Discover a brand new world

What is CouchSurfing?

CouchSurfing is an online hospitality & travel community. As said on the website, this is the goal of CouchSurfing: “CouchSurfing seeks to internationally network people and places, create educational exchanges, raise collective consciousness, spread tolerance, and facilitate cultural understanding.”

Travellers can meet each other on the website, get in contact, stay at each other’s places, get a drink together, attend meetings, … It’s all about hospitality, exceeding cultural differences, making friends.

It all starts with a personal profile on the website, and there you go. The rest is up to you. Here’s my profile by the way: www.couchsurfing.com/people/stoemp

Why did I become a member?

Well, I don’t really know what attracted me the most. I think all of you know me as a social person, so I think it’s the social aspect that got me into it. My cousin Griet told me about the project. She had some awesome experiences with travellers at her place, so why not? The expectations were not too high though. This changed pretty quickly when I started to have my first experiences myself. I met travellers, made friends, got invited to their houses in nice cities and countries, … Now I’m an addict. Really…

So, tell me about your experiences then!

Ok, well there’s too much to name it all. Details about all my experiences can be found in my CouchSurfing profile on the website.
What I can say is that I have been both a host and a guest and every single experience was awesome. I had guests from Germany, Canada, US, Puerto Rico and India. I have been hosted myself in Stockholm and Brussels, and in July I’ll be hosted by people all over Ontario and Quebec in Canada.

Dear CouchSurfing friends at my place (left to right): Lindsay (CA), me (B), Jake (US), Nadine (GER), Patrick (CA) and Bob (BE)

I have also attended quite a few meetings in Belgium as well as abroad and organised one in Stockholm myself. Meetings are a great way to meet interesting people from all over the world, together at one place, all sharing the same passion: travelling.

It seems like you’re quite involved. What else do you do?

I started volunteering for CouchSurfing when joining the new member welcome team in February 2007. Now I greet new CouchSurfing members from all over the globe, making them feel welcome in the community and helping them out with answering questions they might have. Around 4000 new members join every week (based on stats of May 2007), so it’s quite a handfull.

In the near future, I want to become more involved. I will apply for ambassadorship real soon, so I have more tools to promote CouchSurfing wherever I come. I know some of the Belgian ambassadors and we’re planning to make CouchSurfing really big in Belgium. We would also like to bring the community closer together.

Is it safe?

A lot of people are scared of the fact of having strangers in their house or staying at a stranger’s place. There’s no need to. On CouchSurfing we have some built-in security measures that can help you avoid negative experiences:

1. References: Everyone has a references section on his profile, displaying the references other people have left and references he/she left for other people. The references you get from someone can’t be altered by yourself, so if you did something stupid and you get a negative reference… well too bad. It’s there for all future guests and hosts to see. So if you’re looking for a host or getting a request from a host, check out their references first.
2. Vouching: When someone thinks you’re really thrustworthy, he/she can vouch for you. Only thrustworthy people who received 3 vouches can vouch someone else, so if you want to be sure about your guest or host, vouching is a second parameter to watch. I’m not saying thought that non-vouched members are not thrustworthy. Far from that. All 3 security measures should be checked.
3. Verified members: There are three levels of verification:
   1. Level 1 blocks your address. This means you can’t change your address anymore. This makes sure you’re not someone who enters fake addresses and changes them from time to time.
   2. Level 2 verifies your name through a credit card. You pay $25 with your credit card so CouchSurfing can verify your name.
   3. Level 3: You get a letter from CouchSurfing at the address you entered on the website. There is a code on the letter that you have to enter on the website. Then you’re level 3 verified: Your address is blocked, you are who you pretend to be and you live at the address you specified.

All these security measures help you feel more safe. But in the end it’s common sense that matters. You won’t find too many members that are verified, have vouches and have lots of good references. These are only the real active members and die hard CouchSurfers. If you’re looking for a host or have a request from a guest, let your own common sense decide what to do. It’s the best security measure in my opinion. And by the way, don’t be scared, negative experiences are very rare at CouchSurfing.

So how do I get started then?

Well, if you feel like this is something for you, go to www.couchsurfing.com, create your profile and start making friends. It’s as simple as that. If you need help joining or updating your profile, send me a message and I’m there for you.