I've been using CS for over five years. Absolutely amazing. I've been able to stay in places I'd never have afforded otherwise. I've met wonderful people that I've learned from and that have given me a much better experience in places than if I was on my own.

As for guys wanting sex, I guess there's no point denying it happens, but it is VERY rare. You can easily avoid it by only staying with people that have plenty of positive references. It's quite easy to get a rough idea of a person by reading what they have written about themselves on their profiles in addition to what others have written about them.

>>925814
Were you couchsurfing alone ? Doyou prefer staying with guys, girls or couples?

>>925820
I have couchsurfed alone and with my boyfriend (I'm a guy). I've/we've stayed with straight and gay couples, as well as single men and women.

I prefer staying with people closer to my personality - the gender/sexuality makes no difference. I think most people on CS feel the same way. You want to make sure you get on with who you'll be staying with / hosting.

>>925822
Well I'll be traveling alone and as a girl I'd rather stay with female hosts. But there aren't that many...
Do you talk to them a lot before going to their place ? How many days in advance do you "book" ?

>>925825
All of that really depends on the host. Some people want to know more than a week in advance when you're coming. Some people can only commit to hosting someone a day or two in advance. Read peoples' profiles - they'll say what their preferences are.

As for talking with people before going to their place - I don't think that really happens much. It makes it seem so formal!

Regarding female hosts, there are plenty. I don't know the statistics but there certainly doesn't seem to be that many more men than women on CS. I've stayed with a lot of women and had a lot of female guests.

I've slept with girl hosts/surfers, but each time I've been really cautious and waited for them to make their interest clear first because I didn't want to be that guy who abuses the concept of hospitality. I've also had great female CS experiences that didn't involve sex. If you're that worried about it, there is no problem with explicitly stating in your profile/request that you aren't looking to hook up.

Had a good few experiences, especially with the weekly meetups in Tokyo, stayed with some really nice hosts around Japan, but then things turned ugly.

I got spiked in Tokyo (unrelated to CS) and woke up with almost all my possessions missing, including passport (still had my wallet and phone as I'm accustomed to hiding them in the lining of my jacket as I live in a shithole city). Without a passport, you can't check into any accommodation in Japan so I was scuppered, I put out a request on the Tokyo group.

I ended up staying with this Mexican guy for a while because he was cool about having me over - He was a PHD student and hardly home, and didn't really have any people to speak to because he was so busy at uni. It was okay at first but then it started getting a bit weird - He would make sure I was taking showers and shit like that (one time he kept opening the door to pass me more stuff) but I was so pre-occupied with getting my stuff back I didn't give it much thought. He kept putting his hands on me at every opportunity (reassuring pat on the back and the like).

Then one night I'd come home (there was a hidden spare key) and gone to sleep on the futon on the floor, I woke up to him shifting my legs to one side and I asked what the fuck he was doing, and he started acting really fucking strange like lying next to me and asking if that was okay

NOPE.PNG

So I say "this is making me uncomfortable, I'm leaving" to which he responds by throwing his arms around me, screaming "I LOVE YOU, FORGIVE ME" and physically blocking me from leaving his place. Now I'm 5'9 but very slim, this guy was about 6'4 and twice my overall size, so at this point I began eying the kitchen knives incase things went bad to worse, but he let me go when I looked him dead in the eye and said "I've killed better people for less than this" -

That was a line I read on /k/ once and thought sounded badass. Thankfully he backed away and let me leave.

>>926841

So yeah, be very fucking careful. Plenty of people are on Couchsurfing for the right reasons and are terrific - There's a lot of people on there just to get laid and if both parties are mutually up for it, then there's no problems.

Just always be mindful of people's motivations for joining CS. Ask WHY they are letting you stay. I find the best way of getting hosts is attending the weekly meetups which big cities typically have, as you can actually meet people before you stay with them, and there will usually be someone to warn you if they're a weirdo or a creep. I stayed with some great hosts in Tokyo after a night there.

The cunt who tried to fucking molest me in the night deleted his profile, so I keep checking to make sure he hasn't made a new one. I'm going to make his life absolute hell if he ever tries to use CS again. I wonder how his university would react if I told them the story..

>>926841
>>926842

Lol this is a grand story.

I feel a little guilty about my own hosting experiences. Hosted several people with no issues. Hosted one cute girl for two nights I think, second night I came home wasted and she was at the place. We played guitar and talked until late night, got close together and started making out. I get her shirt off and start feeling her tits, she insists we stop there even though I'm pretty much molesting her. She was several years younger than me and I think a virgin so I didn't push it.

Stopped then but felt so guilty afterwards. She was really nice but I always felt like I took advantage of her.

Anyways that's my confession time. Always trust someone's reviews, especially if you're a female surfer. Stay with people with lots of positive reviews.

>>926869
I should have mentioned that I'm a guy in my story

What if I only want to place to stay but I dont actually want to talk to the hosts? I'm pretty shy and anyway I haven't found anyone who I've "clicked" with so I much rather avoid it altogether. Is it possible?

>>926927
Well aren't you a selfish little shit. It's called a hotel.

>>926877
Obviously. There's no girls on the internet.

I have no reference but I want to be hosted.

What do ?

>>927697
ask friends to write references for you

>>926841
I believed it until
>"I've killed better people for less than this"

>>927714
I don't have any friends.

>>927729
I forgot I was on 4chan, silly me.

>>927729
make friends through surfing at other people's places

Well OP, the long established slogan for hitch-hiking is, "Ass, gas or grass- nobody rides for free".

I always assumed that was the CS rule.

>>927697

Write a complete profile and send more requests than what you would normally send. I had no references (and didn't ask friends to write them for me) so I did it this way.

>>927768
I'm bringing chocolate for my host, is that enough of a gesture? (3-4 nights)
Oh, and asked him to come to a party I organize.

>>927786
You should bring him your girlfriend too. And your mother.

>>927729
Go to one of the couchsurfing meet-ups that happen in every major city. Be nice to people there, hang out with them and at the end ask for a reference.

>>927800
My mom will have to do ;_____;

>>927824
Post pics.

>>927720

You don't have to believe it bub - It happened. Kind of hard to believe when I think about it myself >_>

>>926927
Then don't bother with Couchsurfing - The whole point is to meet people. You are just looking for a hotel.

>>927768
Like I mentioned in an earlier post - Question people's motivations for being a host. Usually I'll have a stash of gifts related to my hometown (keyrings, postcards ect) to give. Quite a lot of hosts have little collections of such gifts from all their surfers.

>>927786
That's easily a good enough gesture, but as I said earlier, get some postcards from your hometown to give as a permanent memento.

>>926841
Umm . . . are you a grill?

>>927768
I hope not. One of the things that stops me from offering a spot on CS is that I don't want some hippie with a baggie of pot in my apartment. I don't need the police hassle here (Asia, death to drug traffickers, guaranteed deportation, etc.).

>>928637
Jeez, are you people serious? CS isn't just a lottery, you are allowed to give guidelines to potential hosts/surfers. If you are scared of sex or weed, just fucking say you don't want sex or weed. It isn't hard.

>>928639
>implying that some drug-addled loser would actually comply with that request

I'm thinking of setting up a profile for hosting. The downside is that I probably won't get many interested guests since my location is a bit out of the way.

>>928829
It's called references.

>>928832
Probably

>start hosting
>live in bumhole nowhere
>no requests
>move to second biggest city in the country
>enough requests to host people every week

>>928886
I'm not even in a bumhole nowhere. I'm about 30 minutes away from large-ish city in Europe, which doesn't sound too bad, but even that is probably enough to deter most people - why go that far when you can look for people right in the city.

dont do it if you have spaghetti in your pockets. can be the most awkward experience ever. preferable to sleep on the street.

>>929168
Some people like the small town life experience, it's a bit more 'real' in some respects than the big cities. I stayed with a couple a few miles out of Fukushima and got a real insight into the local life.

Anyone care to comment:

I've been considering letting CS people stay. Weekends only (Friday and Saturday evening/nights), because I work during the week and if the other person is late I'd be stuck at home.
I don't have any separate bedrooms or anything, it's one big room with an open loft area for sleeping in. I can put a separate mattress in the main part of the room for the visitor, but it's fully exposed. On the plus side, it's also by the bathroom, whereas I'd have to climb up and down the stairs.
I'm not particularly social, and wouldn't want to hang around together all day with anyone.
I'd mostly be offering a place to sleep and some suggestions on things to do and places to eat. Get in, sleep, wake up, shower, go.

Would people be interested in that, or would I be getting "hurr he didn't hold my hand all day waaaah he sucks" reviews?

>>929246
Again, you make these things clear in your profile or correspondence with the surfer. I'm sure there are people who would be happy with that. I personally wouldn't, I prefer the "here are a set of house keys, if I am busy you can come and go as you please" arrangement. So it's important to make sure your expectations align first.

>>929180
You just gotta find the hosts who also have spaghetti. There's a subculture of introverts on CS that I manage to get along with, and I get along with almost no one. It's usually pretty easy to spot the extrovert cool guys on the site, avoid them.

CS overall though has jumped the shark. Too many people using it as a dating site.

>>926841
holy fuck. i've been hosted 4x, and hosted someone once. all fellow dudes. never been assaulted like that.

I'm a guy and I've been using Couchsurfing for about two years. With anything in life you need to be intelligent about what you are doing. So read people's profiles and reference and if you have the chance try to talk to them beforehand. Just be smart and careful about what you do. I personally will only host people that have a throughly written profile or at least send a nice well written request ask to why they want to stay with me. References help, but I don't require them in order to host people, but I won't host people that have nothing written on their profile and only write me a message saying "Hey I like traveling and want to stay with you." These people are usually just moochers looking to use you as a free hotel and don't understand the spirit of Couchsurfing . All and all it's an awesome concept that will change you and your life if used correctly and carefully. As to couchsurfers hooking up, well yeah it happens. If both people are the ok with it, then why not? Personally it has happened 4 times to me, but I don't use Couchsurfing for that. Shit happens naturally sometimes, so why not? The first time I met a local CS girl and my city and she ended up becoming my girlfriend for a while. The second time I was hosting a girl and we both flirted with each others and then we ended up fucking like crazy for a week, but she ended up falling for me and I wasn't interested in her because she turned out to be a dumb bitch and I kept telling her no every time she wanted to come back and visit me. The third time was with another local CS girl in my city. We hung out together once and we really clicked together. A week later we hung out again and had a few drinks and I went back to her place and we fucked that night. Another time we hooked up again. A few weeks after that we went to a club together and she got super wasted and hooked up with another guy in front of me, which I was pissed off about. I haven't seen her since, but will use her as a fuck buddy again.

Continued from before
The forth time for was with another local CS girl in my city. I organized a CS dinner meet up with some people and met her there. We had some drinks and partied together. I made out with all night and it happend again the next time we saw each other. I will most likely use her as a fuck buddy. In conclusion all of this happened randomly and was not planned. Hook ups happen it's normal. Just be clear about things and everything will go smoothly.
PS There was a possibility for a fifth time with another girl I hosted, but when met her she was chubby as fuck and I lost my interest xD We had been messaging for weeks before she arrived and we were flirting. I assumed something could happen, but once I saw all that wobbly jelly flopping around I lost interest. I hosted just the same and she was a really cool and chill person, just not fuckable for me.

>>929271
subculture of introverts on cs? well that a new thing for me... i guess i chose wrongly when i did it cause i ended in a flat of several normalfags and even forced myself going out with them... it was painful as walking on fire.

anyway, why would you wanna do this if you are introvert?

>>929271

Almostraped bro here. I've met a few spaghetti hosts, and I don't think a spaghetti host and a spaghetti surfer would make a good combo, it would just be even more awkward.

I met this guy once in Tokyo - He was a perfectly nice lad but very shy and quiet, so it wasn't really the proper CS experience in my mind.

>>929496
>a spaghetti host and a spaghetti surfer would make a good combo, it would just be even more awkward
Good point for all you spaghetti-spillers... Your ideal partner is not someone who is as awkward as you are, it's someone outgoing and talkative who balances you out.

>>929498
As someone who never used CS, what's this spaghetti talk.

>>929506
It's a 4chan thing, not a CS thing. Means socially awkward.

>>926841
ITT: We make up stuff.

I stayed with the Queen at WIndsor, dirty old bint tried to pinch my nipples as she necked gin from the bottle. I picked up a Beefeater's hat and said I've sucked off French Nationalists for less than this to her.
She then Abdicated and left Grahme Norton as Queen of England.

>>925806
As a guy traveling Europe I stayed with two female hosts, one middle aged couple, and one gay male.
Nobody travels to where I live, so I haven't hosted anyone.
Honestly, if a hot girl stayed at my place I would be a friendly host, a bit flirty, maybe a bit obvious, but not at all pushy.
But if that's too much for you then just go ahead and avoid single men,
Expecting a single (straight) man to not make some kind of effort to have sex with an attractive female in his home is unrealistic. It's all about how strong of a personality you have.

>>926869
You shouldn't feel bad, you went as far as you thought she wanted to go. You stopped when she said stop.
If things went further than she wanted, it's her fault not yours. You shouldn't feel bad because you don't have ESP.

>>929536
Bullshit.
I'm a single man and been hosting lots of people including girls. I've never even thought of making any effort to have sex with them. I'm a goddamn host! They're supposed to feel comfortable. They are my guests and should be treated as guest, not as possible fuck toys.

>>929529

ITT, people don't believe a true and come to think of it fairly likely story given the sheer number of people on Couchsurfing

>>929618
The point is to be just yourself. If two people click together and there is spark between them and both people consent to it, then there is no reason to not let something happen, but as a host you should never push anything.

I get a strong vibe that Couch surfing has changed a lot over the past few years...it was non-profit but has since become very corporate.

Is that true? Are people using other sites nowadays?

>>930325
How is it corporate? I don't pay any money for it, and don't see any advertising.