Couch Srufing

Couch surfing is the latest in a wave of social networking sites to hit cyberspace. It's a place where people can offer up their couch, airbed, backyard tent space, guest room or even a whole apartment to travelers from across the globe. Weary travelers can easily look up the town they're visiting, contact a local host and hopefully find somewhere to sleep for free.

The couch surfing website features the profiles of around 400,000 members who can upload photographs and information about themselves and what type of accommodation they offer.

"If you're open-minded and you're interested in people and you're curious, you can become a couch surfer," said Anne-Marie Ross whose profile name is Rossi in Rotterdam. "Being a couch surfer allows you to keep in touch in an easy way because you have the website."

Ulf Kleinings, alias Mr. Ulf, also enjoys showing visitors around the German city of Cologne. He has hosted over 250 people so far and said he enjoys taking newcomers to the non-touristy brewery houses that the city is famous for.

"While the sleeping arrangement might be different from place to place, the host will usually be welcoming and will be able to show you around," Kleinings said.

Surfing Exotic Waves

Couch surfing may not offer the kind of privacy that one gets in a hotel, but it does come with a personal touch that's missing from established tourist establishments. For Rossi, the highlights have been staying in a Hindu Temple in New York and in a garden shed on Nantucket Island in the US, where she slept on an airbed surrounded by candlelight.

Bryan McDonald, who usually goes by his profile name Duke, has been a couch surfer for three years and has hosted over 100 people in his home country Mexico. He has also managed to hitchhike his way across Europe staying with a couch surfer at every stop. To date, his most memorable couches have been in Russia.

"I remember very fondly staying with hosts in Russia, in St Petersburg and Moscow," he said. "Most of my hosts were living in these really, really small spaces and were very happy to share what little they had with you and were very excited about it."

Couch surfing isn't just for tourists either. Jacek Pisarczyk used the site for the first time when he moved from Poland to the Netherlands. He said he didn't know anyone in Rotterdam and his host was "really great because they let me stay for ten days while I was looking for a flat to rent."

Surf Safety

Not everyone is comfortable with staying with a complete stranger who they met via the internet. But that's why the website uses a user rating system.

"If you are hosted or if you host someone then you can leave a reference, positive or negative, about the experience," said McDonald, who is also a member of the couch surfing leadership team that volunteers in the running of the website. "And, of course, the more positive references the person has well the more trustworthy they are."

In addition to user-generated references, the couch-surfing website has vouching and verification systems. Verification involves giving a small credit-card donation to the organization.

"It's unlikely that someone wanting to do something bad would want to do this," McDonald said.

The vouching system is essentially a trust circle, whereby members can vouch for each other.

"We're not guaranteeing that couch surfing is 100 percent safe by doing this, but we are providing the best features and measures to make you feel safe and to discourage people from trying to abuse the site," McDonald said.

But is there a catch?

Couch surfing is free and users are under no obligation to compensate their hosts.

"It's not like a file exchange where you are expected to upload files to get them," said Kleinings.

The site's founder Casey Fenton got the idea for the project when several years ago he had a cheap ticket to Iceland but nowhere to stay. He decided to spam 1500 Icelandic students in Reykjavik asking if they could offer a couch to sleep on for a few nights. He found a couch and thus the couch surfing project was born.

Aldo Golja from Rotterdam, profile name Aldo, claims to be the first official couch surfer. He joined the site in its early stages in 2003 while studying in the US. He needed a place to stay in Philadelphia, where he was attending a conference. Through the website, he ended up on Fenton's couch.

More than Just a Free Place to Crash

Since then Golja has stayed on more than 50 couches.

"When I started using [the website], it was this cool idea of how to get a cheap place to stay and to also meet locals and see their city through their eyes," Golja said.

"Now with 400,000 members, you see that it is so much more than that. You see friendships evolving. So it's much more than a cheap place to stay. It's a social network, and not just online but also offline," he said.