CouchSurfing (CS) is a system for cultural exchange and hosting, this hosting is provided by, let’s say, “some guy you met on the internet”, because normally you will be staying with somebody who you have never seen in your life before.
The couch or sofa, could be an actual couch, a bed, a private room, an inflatable mattress in the living room, or the ground, it depends on each person’s possibilities.
But CS is more than only hosting and being hosted in another city. Each person has his own criteria, but in general we can say than a good host will hardly accept a request from somebody who’s only looking for a free place to sleep.
The main idea is to promote the cultural exchange, to know each other, to share ideas, to compare those cultural differences and to discover with a local inhabitant a lot of things of the city that would still unknown for you if you were just a regular tourist.
Please notice that once your host has accepted your request his only responsibility is to provide accommodation. He/she will obviously try to help you in any possible way and to suggest you what to see or what to do, and if he/she has some free time he/she will be pleased to show you around, but this is not mandatory.
Yes, as a CouchSurfer you are free to go anywhere you want, in the end your host is not a tour guide you are not forced to go stay him/her 24/7. The perfect scenario is that one where you have enough time to do whatever you want, but also share some time with your host.
How does CS work?
Let’s start with the main thing: the profile.
Would you let in John Doe, who claims to come from Timbuktu and has no pictures on his profile?
No way!! Right?
So... how do you expect to be hosted if your profile is as empty as that?
Therefore, mission #1: FILL YOUR PROFILE!! Tell the people who you are, what do you like to do the most, add some cool pics, where have you been before (or where do you wanna go), tell what are the languages you speak... and it is not mandatory but it is better to write it all in English... you know, if you are looking for a host in Paris but you don’t speak French and your profile is only in Spanish it could be a little bit complicated.
CS profiles work like those on ebay and other e-commerce websites:people who have met this person (host or guest) write him/her a reference (positive, negative, or neutral), so you can know if this person is trustworthy or not.
And what if you have no references and you are traveling next month?
Well, you have 2 choices:
- You can attend events of your local community, so you can meet other people and they can write you a reference
- Or even better, you can host a traveler!
Personally I consider the second choice as the best one. At least, as a host, I prefer to host people who has hosted travelers before. Is a little bit like bringing them back some of the hospitality they offered to other people. Kind of a karma.
In this point I just make an exception: there are guys who have hosted a lot of people... but ALL of them have been girls. I’m pretty sure that if I was asking them to host me they wouldn’t accept me... so do I. Yes, karma, always karma... and it’s a bitch!
Long time ago we had groups. Now they have been replaced by “Place Pages”. Normally when you log on you are redirected to the Place Page of the city where you live, there you can meet people from your city, locals and travelers can get some advice or ask general questions. If you are traveling you can take a look to that city’s Place Page, most of the time the meetings are published there. In MXC we have a weekly meeting on Thursday (“La Insti”), there’s a group of CSers going to a salsa dancing place on Tuesday, on Friday we go to the lucha libre (wrestling) show and so on.
Cool, now you have a profile... but that doesn’t mean that people will always host you.
To find a host go to the Surf/Host section and write the name of the city where you wanna go. A list with the people living in that city will be shown. You can use the filters to make an specific research.
When you are looking for a host please consider these tips:
1) Read at least the basic information about the person you are about to contact. Maybe you have nothing in common, maybe he/she lives far away from the downtown, maybe he/she has a cat and/she accepted your request you should read the whole profile. It is always cool to know a little bit about the person who’s gonna host you, don’t you think so?
2) Send creative and detailed requests. Call the person by his name. No one likes those shity requests, like “Hey, buddy! I’m coming to your city by the end of July and the mid of August, would you host me?”
Each person “sets a price” to his couch. For me it’s enough if they call me by my name and they tell me when and at what time are they arriving and leaving, but there is also “picky” people: if you don’t include the “magic word” (it is hidden somewhere in their profiles) in the request, they won’t accept you.
TIP: creative requests get several positive replies. Guaranteed success.
ATTENTION: If you don’t wanna send several requests you can write a public request, just check the “Make this an Open Couch Request” box when you are writing your first request. It will be sent to a “pool” where the local surfers can pick you up. If you are a girl and chose this option please be ready to receive more than 40 invitations from guys with no references :)
3) It is not mandatory, but for a host it is always cool to receive a small gift. Sure, the size of it will depend on for how long you will be traveling. If you are visiting only 2 or 3 cities you can bring a huge bottle of booze for them, but if you are going to visit 30 cities within a period of 6 months you must think about bringing something else: a keychain or a magnet for the fridge will be enough.
4) Buy your own food and drinks. As a host I understand that sometimes my surfers are too tired to go to the supermarket, specially when they arrive late at night, so I can share some bread, cereals and milk for the dinner and for the breakfast, but after that they need to buy all what they need for the days they will stay.
5) If you are thinking about staying in a city longer than one week you should look for several hosts. Some people has no problem and they will host you for as long as you want (some urban myths say there was a guy who surfed for 3 months at the same place). All depends on how good is the relationship with your host, but the normal stuff is staying from 2 to 4 days.
6) NEVER send requests more than 2 weeks before your trip. CS hosts are not hotels, they do have a life. One week before your trip is the ideal time to look for a couch. There’s even people who like to receive very last minute requests, I mean, one day or just a few hours before.
7) Follow your host’s rules: consider that some people will ask you to leave when they go to work, others will give you the keys so you are free to go out and come back at any time. Some people won’t allow you to enter with wearing shoes. SOme people is vegetarian or vegan and won’t allow you to cook meat... some of them won’t even let you to put it in the fridge. In some cases you will have to learn how to separate the trash. Yup, you might not like some of them, but the rules are the rules! read them, follow them and avoid any problems with your host.
8)All hosting rules, do’s and don’ts are supposedly mentioned in your host profile, so ,of course, you as a surfer may complain about any improper conduct from your host that was not initially agreed using the adequate channels (Reference in her/his profile). Example: Your host never mentioned he uses to listen to music at 3 am at an intolerable volume. Remember you (host) are VOLUNTARILY offering your place which immediately establishes a good will relationship agreement.
9) If you sent a lot of request and received several positive replies, tell them that you have already found a host.
10) If something changes, inform your host. Seriously, is NOT cool to be waiting at home for somebody who was supposed to arrive on Friday night and who finally will arive on Monday morning... or who will never arrive.
11) PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do always have a freakin’ cellphone! Having to coordinate times with somebody who’s basically isolated is not easy.
What Couchsurfing is not
If your sole intention is to get into Couchsurfing for any of the following purposes let us tell you are completely lost and that you must rather find another site that really fits your needs:
1) This is NOT A DATING SITE. If you think you can just break into a CS meeting to pick up guys or girls, think it twice. Foreigner stalker or güero hunters are in most cases immediately detected. That doesn't mean you cannot establish a nice relationship with someone, it’s just that there are lots of meeting crashers just standing there to catch some “prey”. Mexican girls and boys are not naïve, so avoid arranging personal dates with them lying about your intentions. BE A REAL MAN/WOMAN.
2)This is NOT A COLLEGE-STYLE PARTY ANNOUNCEMENT CORKBOARD: Try to refrain your inner party animal for a moment and consider not posting things like: “I feel like F&%/$ all night and want an orgy”, “Let´s hangout and drink until we spit our livers”, “Anyone wants to come with me to a strip club/wedding/erotic massage session/pick up mission”.
3)This is NOT A FREE CHANCE TO SLEEP AT SOMEONE’S: Even though one of the many advantages of this site is to save some money during your trip, you must not see your host as a MEANS but as a person who is kindly willing to share his way of life, culture and space with you.
No comments:
Post a Comment