HOW TO CRUSH IT ON COUCHSURFING

Last Updated: 9/25/20 | September 25th, 2020

Couchsurfing was one of the first sharing economy travel web sites in the world.

Couchsurfing was conceived by 21-year-old Casey Fenton in 1999. After he found a low-cost flight to Iceland, he realized he didn’t have a location to say.

Instead of settling for a expensive hotel, Fenton hacked into the university of Iceland’s trainee database and e-mailed 1,500 trainees asking for a location to stay. almost 100 people replied. When he returned home, Casey came and started Couchsurfing. From there, the site grew into one of the main methods travelers connect with locals for events and locations to stay.

It (and sites like it such as BeWelcome, Servas, and GlobalFreeloaders) stays one of the very best methods to connect with locals, get off the main vacationer travel path, make new friends, and save money by getting free accommodation.

I started utilizing Couchsurfing during my first round the world trip in 2006. My first hold was a lady in Athens who taught me what makes the best gyro while my second hold a guy who let me stay in his guesthouse (with a pool!) for as long as I desired and my third a couple in Melbourne who showed me around the suburbs.

Though I utilized it only a few times that original trip, in the years that have followed, it ended up being my lifeline. I’ve satisfied people I still phone call good friends today. Couchsurfing has opened up a world of outstanding people to me while assisting bring down on the greatest costs in travel.

Though the service isn’t as prominent as it utilized to be, it stays prominent enough where holds still get swamped with more requests than they can handle and you have to make yourself stand out.

If you’re sending out lots of requests and nobody composes back — even to state no — then something is wrong with your approach. holds can normally odor the travelers who just want to utilize them for a free location to stay a mile away (a lesson I discovered the hard method early on).

It’s important to keep in mind that the people you are reaching out to have genuine lives and are taking you into their home for free. The dates might not work and/or they might get so many requests (and this is extremely true for prominent destinations) they just don’t have the time to respond to them all.

So how do you prosper at Couchsurfing? how do you find people who will state agree to hold you but won’t be overall creeps? show that you want to be involved in the community. That you care. That you took the time to fill out your profile in detail and aren’t just utilizing this as a method to avoid paying $30 for a dorm bed.

Here is how to prosper and get a action on Couchsurfing:

Always have multiple (and Current) profile Pictures

This just shows me, as a prospective host, that you’re a genuine person. have photos of you with your friends, from your travels, and having fun. I can see you took the time to put the pictures up. It shows you care and you have a social life.

Moreover, make sure they match your age. If your profile states you are 30 and your pictures look like they were taken ten years ago, that’s a bit weird. keep them updated. I am constantly adding pictures from my travels. I currently have five uploaded. I don’t believe there is any magic number to this but the more the better.

Fill Out Your profile in Detail

If you’ve taken the time to fill out your profile, it most likely indicates you are severe about this site. It will give people a chance to learn what type of person you are instead of guessing based on the one email you composed them and that ten-year-old picture you swiftly put up. profiles with believed and detail get a lot more responses. I want to know about the complete stranger I am going to have in my home, and your complete profile lets me do that.

Have suggestions and Reviews

Both holds and travelers can accrue suggestions from other hosts, friends, and guests. As always, the more positive reviews, the better. If you see that other people have stayed with the hold and had a fun and risk-free experience, you most likely will too. You might not get together with the hold in the end, but at least you know they aren’t a creep or will take your stuff.

The exact same works for you, the prospective guest. holds want to see that you aren’t a creep too!

However, if you are new to the service don’t have any reviews, ask your good friends who utilize the service to compose you a evaluation and describe you as a friend. I accept a lot of people as guests because, while they are new to the service, they have positive evaluations from people they know (who also have positive reviews), from other people they’ve satisfied traveling, or from Couchsurfing meet-ups.

Attend Meet-ups in Your City

If you’re new to the platform and don’t have any reviews, attend local meet-ups and events. After all, Couchsurfing is more than just staying with people. Ez körülbelülbeing part of a community!

Each city — including your own — will likely lots of routine activities, groups, and events that you can attend. meet people — whether as a local or a traveler — and get to know them. Go places. Lógni. get evaluations from people. Not all your evaluations requirement to find from people who have stayed with you!

Plus, this is a terrific method to make new good friends who like to travel! You can utilize the “Hangouts” function on the app to find people near you, suggest activities, and make connections. This is the fastest method to get evaluations and grow your account.

Be a hold First

Another method to earn evaluations (as well as give back to the community) is to hold people. Being a hold isn’t always about having people stay with you either. often it’s just being a excursion guide. I’ve had outstanding holds who just showed me their town — from the girl in Ukraine who brought me to a university party, to the guy in Oxford who took me rowing, to the good friends in Munich who took me an outstanding rock concert.

If you don’t have area to host, offer to take people out and show them around your city. If people have spent time with you — even if they haven’t stayed at your location — you’ll still earn reviews, make new friends, and increase your possibilities of being held down the road!

Get Verified

Couchsurfing uses different levels of verification. members can be verified by their address, government ID, phone number, and by paying a membership fee. getting verified is one of the most important things you can do to improve your possibilities of being hosted. understanding that a person has been verified reduces the probability that they are going to be a crazy psycho killer.

As of 2020, Couchsurfing needs a little fee in buy to utilize the platform (due to their financial struggles from COVID19). members requirement to pay $2.39 per month (or $14.29 per year), which supplies access to the platform and gets you verified (if you were already verified, you won’t requirement to pay up until 2021).

While it is a cost, it’s a negligible one. The community has tons of value, from its app to its forums to the free lodging it offers. If you can afford it, I’d encourage you to pay the fee. Megéri!

Write Captivating and personal Requests

When sending out requests for a host, make your request personal. Don’t just compose one or two sentences, communicate what you liked about their profile, why you would be a good fit, your routines and hobbies, what you want to get out of it, and what you can offer the host. Be interesting and be personal.

The reason a lot of people fail at Couchsurfing is that they send out boring, generic, cut-and-pasted emails. here is an example of that:

Hi Matt,

I’m pertaining to Austin next week for 3 days. Maradhatok veled?

Sam

I would ignore or respond no to that email. It doesn’t tell me anything about the person. I have to do the extra work to go to the person’s page, click around, and figure out on my own if this person is typical or not.

A much better email is would be:

Hi Matt,

Hogy vagy? I’m pertaining to Austin next week for three days and saw your hold page. like you, I’m also a big fan of game of Thrones, whiskey, and Thai food. It would be remarkable to have a hold who could show me those things around Austin. I’ve heard lots of terrific things about the city and am seeking to get outdoors and explore. I also like to cook and would like to cook you a meal from my country, France! I’m quiet, clean, and won’t be in your method if you requirement to work or something.

– Sam

That’s the type of email that would get a action from me! Moreover, Benny Lewis of Fluent in 3 Months, who has held over 2,000 couchsurfers, uses this advice:

Think of what you can do for that host. people tend to be extremely self-centered in their emails and state how outstanding a person they are, which would make me roll my eyes a lot. but the strange email would be from somebody who chosen up on something on my profile, such as a language I’d like to learn and stating that in exchange for the couch, he can show me a few of that language. That would stimulate my interest and get me to hold them more!

When there is a sense that somebody should have to be hosted, forgetting that I’m providing them the roofing and local tours, etc., free of charge, it’s a breath of fresh air when somebody states that if I take him to a local club, he’ll show me hip-hop dance moves.

Don’t be self-centered. It’s evident you are trying to find a free location to stay but you have to go beyond that. let holds know what you can do for them and why it’s going to be a fun experience.

Send Out multiple Requests

Part of Couchsurfing is playing the numbers game. It’s just a fact of the system. If you email just one or two people, especially in a city with few hosts, it’s skeptical you’ll find much success. email as many holds as possible to maximize your chances. Azt állítva, hogy „sajnálom, találtam egy másik házigazdát”, nem fog rossz vért okozni, és sok tartalom elismeri, hogy több embert küld e -mailben. Nem küldök e -mailben olyan leendő tulajdonságokat, akik 30 napon belül nem voltak aktívak a webhelyen, mert kevésbé valószínű, hogy válaszolnak rád.

***
A legtöbb ember kudarcot vall a Couchsurfingnél, mert csak módszerként használja fel, hogy ingyenes helyet szerezzen. Bizonyos erőfeszítéseket tettek rá, mégis kiemelkedő eredményeket várnak el. A Couchsurfing egy hozzáállás, gondolkodásmód, és sok szempontból egy közösség.

Nem minden birtoklás akar kölcsönhatásba lépni a vendégeikkel, de még azok is, akik nagyon kevés kapcsolatot akarnak, még mindig akarnak találkozni és érdekes emberekkel beszélni. Ha nem tették meg, inkább az Airbnb -re helyezik a helyüket.

Annak érdekében, hogy összetörje a couchsurfing -en, pozitív hozzáállást és vágyat kell igénybe vennie, hogy egy közösség tagja legyen.

Nem csak azt akarja, hogy az embereket ingyenes helyre használja.

És mindig ne feledje, hogy jó vendég legyen: légy tisztelettel, légy tiszta, légy rendezett és kövesse a házigazdák által beállított „ház” politikát.

Hogyan utazzunk a világon napi 50 dollárral

A New York Times nagyon népszerű papírkötési útmutatóm a világutazáshoz megmutatja, hogyan lehet elsajátítani az utazási művészetet annak biztosítása érdekében, hogy kiszálljon a legyőzött ösvényről, pénzt takarítson meg, és mélyebb utazási élményt nyújtson. Ez az Ön A -tól Z tervezési útmutatója, amelyet a BBC a „Biblia a költségvetési utazók számára” -nek hívott.

Kattintson ide, hogy többet megtudjon, és kezdje el olvasni ma!

Foglalja le utazását: Logisztikai ötletek és trükkök
Foglalja le a járatát
Keressen egy olcsó repülést a Skyscanner felhasználásával. Ez a kedvenc böngésző motorom, mert keresi a webhelyeket és a légitársaságokat szerte a világon, így mindig tudod, hogy a kő nem marad hátra.

Foglalja le szállását
Foglalhatja a hostelét a Hostelworld -nál. Ha a hostelen kívül máshol szeretne maradni, használja a booking.com -ot, mivel azok következetesen visszatérnek a legolcsóbb áron a vendégházak és a szállodák számára.

Ne felejtsd el az utazási biztosítást
Az utazási biztosítás biztosítja Önt a betegség, a sérülés, a lopás és a lemondás ellen. Átfogó biztonság, ha bármi rosszul fordul elő. Soha nem megyek utazásra nélküle, mivel a múltban sokszor kellett felhasználnom. Kedvenc vállalkozásom, amely a legjobb szolgáltatást és értéket kínálja:

Biztonság (mindenki számára a legjobb)

Biztosítsa az utazásomat (a 70 év felettiek számára)

MedJet (további evakuálási lefedettségért)

Készen áll az utazás lefoglalására?
Nézze meg az erőforrás -oldalamat a legjobb vállalkozás számára, amelyet utazás közben használhat. Felsorolom mindazokat, amelyeket utazom, amikor utazom. Ők a legjobbak az osztályban, és nem tévedhet el, ha az utazás során felhasználhatja őket.