I still believe that crashing on a stranger’s couch is the best way to travel, but Couchsurfing isn’t the best place to find couches anymore.
Couchsurfing launched in 2004 after co-founder Casey Fenton emailed over 1,500 students in Reykjavik asking for a place to stay. Dozens offered to open their homes. The Couchsurfing website was a place to make that experience accessible to backpackers worldwide. People could offer their couches, spare bedrooms, or even floors to budget travelers. It gave backpackers a free place to stay and a way to “live like a local” and it gave hosts a chance to meet people from around the world. Surfers would give back by cooking a meal from their culture, sharing a language, or teaching a skill. But Couchsurfing has changed dramatically going from a non-profit organization to a for-profit, and some members feel the platform has lost its radical community-centered roots.
I first started using Couchsurfing in 2011 during my final year of university. I went to meetups in Halifax to get acquainted with the community, and then, during a graduation trip to Newfoundland with some friends, I decided to try surfing. We shared stories in the local pub over Screech rum, and then my two friends and I piled onto one futon at night. We would have had to pay around $40 each per night to stay at a hostel—well out of our budget at the time. Discovering Couchsurfing was like discovering a secret, a way to travel the world on a tiny budget and meet cool people along the way. I was hooked.
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Over the next few years, I surfed around the world and hosted in rented apartments while living in Nafplion, Greece, and Barcelona. In Wellington, New Zealand, I spent a day watching the red carpet for the premiere of The Hobbit with Couchsurfers I’d met a few days before. In Japan, I rolled up my futon and made sushi on the floor with hosts who’d go on to become lifelong friends. In Istanbul, my hosts took my friends and me out for organ meat wraps and were shocked when we loved it. They also hosted my friend for a week while she waited for a new passport after hers was stolen. It was a community for people with a thirst for adventure and unconventional lifestyles.
Couchsurfing, which seems like a shell of its former self, no longer feels like the backpacker haven it once was; I rarely use the platform anymore. Any community that’s been around for two decades is bound to change, but Couchsurfing has evolved far beyond its idealistic origins.
Couchsurfing Becomes a B-Corp, Gets Venture Capital
In its early days, Couchsurfing was run by collectives of volunteers who offered their skills to help build and maintain the website. So when Fenton, the co-founder, announced in 2011 that Couchsurfing was denied its non-profit status and becoming a B-Corp., a classification for a for-profit business that has a positive social impact, there were mixed reactions in the community. According to a blog post from Fenton, becoming a B Corp was the only way to continue existing as an organization, and would help the site and community grow and evolve. Some members understood the need for more financial stability, while others felt like the founders had sold out.
Meanwhile, the founders and their new CEO, Tony Espinoza, raised over $20 million of investment funding over the next year. While Espinoza would resign after a short 18 months, the membership of the website doubled to 7 million users under his tenure.
Couchsurfing struggled to find its footing under this new corporate model. In 2015, Patrick Dugan, who also ran a private equity firm (which has since been scrubbed from the web) became a majority shareholder and took over as CEO. Most of the staff and original volunteers, including the founders, were laid off or quit. The platform continued to grow. But some members were losing trust in the company, feeling like these new members were just looking for a free hostel and didn’t embody the ethos of Couchsurfing. There was a movement from Couchsurfing members spread through blogs and Facebook groups to leave the platform to other hospitality exchange alternatives.
Dugan knew he had to start generating income for Couchsurfing to survive. But the company never found a reliable way to make money. From paying for verification, which only a small number of members did, to ads that brought in a tiny amount of revenue each month, nothing was working, according to a Couchsurfing blog post explaining the decision.
COVID-19 and the Paywall
In May 2020, Couchsurfing implemented a subscription model of $14.29 per year. The paywall ensured the company could survive the pandemic. As a travel service that is the antithesis of social distancing, the pandemic posed major challenges. But the paywall went up without member consultation and locked users out of their profiles, giving rise to concerns around data privacy.
Fenton had promised in a 2011 blog post that “Couchsurfing would never make you pay to surf or host.” Members felt the paywall was the last straw after nine years of watching Couchsurfing struggle to maintain the community they’d helped build. They started leaving, searching out or creating alternate platforms.
Lyda Michopoulou, 38, from Greece, started using Couchsurfing in 2006 when they were in university. This led to a decade-long involvement with the platform. “At first, I was mostly surfing. I visited the Netherlands, Germany, France–I went all over. Then, when I had to stay home for exams, I started hosting more. It was another way to give back to the community.” Lyda got involved in the broader community, hosting potlucks a couple of times a month on their big balcony in Thessaloniki. But when the paywall appeared, they logged out of Couchsurfing for the last time. “It became too corporate,” they told Fodor’s.
Discussions within Couchsurfing communities like this one on Reddit show that Lyda wasn’t the only one who left after the paywall.
Safety Concerns on Couchsurfing
Safety has always been a concern on Couchsurfing, especially for women. And some women don’t feel like their concerns are being taken seriously.
Kathi, 35, from Germany, who asked to be identified by her first name only, has been using Couchsurfing since 2012. She liked that the platform facilitated helping people without the exchange of money. Kathi spent New Year’s with Couchsurfers she met in Edinburgh and went dancing under the stars in Halifax, which led to a group road trip and a swing dancing camp in Prince Edward Island. But she’s also experienced predatory behavior on the platform. She said that Couchsurfing wouldn’t remove the host’s profile even after she reported his behavior.
Kathi still uses Couchsurfing for meetups, but she now mostly uses the women-only platform Host A Sister when she wants to host or surf.
A Change.org petition from 2010 shows this issue is nothing new. But over time, Couchsurfing’s lackluster response may have been a contributing factor in driving members away from the platform.
Couchsurfing did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
So, Is Couchsurfing Still a Thing?
Not all Couchsurfers feel the platform has changed. Nikki Battyanyi, 30, started hosting surfers in Iceland with his sister in 2015 and continues to use the platform today. “I don’t think it has changed much for me. I love it. I would recommend it 100% to any traveler,” he said.
If enough people hadn’t felt it was worth it to pay the annual membership fee, Couchsurfing would have probably had to shut down. But for many, the community isn’t what it once was. As a former avid Couchsurfer, it’s clear to me the platform has changed—and not for the better. The community that had made me feel like I’d found my unconventional community has become just another traveler’s meetup.
While issues of trust between Couchsurfing and its members may play a role in this change, it’s also possible Couchsurfing just got too big, losing its sense of shared values within the group.
I still believe in the idea of Couchsurfing–and inviting strangers into your home has been around since long before there was technology to support it. But I’m not sure that Couchsurfing is the best place to do it anymore.
Alternative sites like Trustroots, BeWelcome, Couchers, Host A Sister, and Warm Showers are trying to capture the community feel of Couchsurfing’s early days. But they’ve not gained a big enough user base to truly be a replacement.
As for me, I’m on Trustroots but haven’t surfed or hosted with it. I’ve paid the Couchsurfing fee and occasionally open the app, looking for events or meetups. I’ve met a few lovely people from it in the last five years, but it’s not something I recommend to travelers anymore. I’ll try some of the other alternatives next, continuing my search for a community like the one I’d grown to love all those years ago.
