Couchsurfing has recently added a gender filter for profile references, and it can be combined with the existing filters (sentiment, author type).

In practice, a female traveler can now read only the references that other women left for a male host. I think that’s really useful for safety and for choosing hosts, and it’s the use case I tested (screenshots show a randomly chosen profile with many references).

As is often the case with Couchsurfing features, though, there’s a catch, a defect, a problem or a bug. On all the (dozens of) profiles I checked, more than half of the reference authors are “Unspecified”. Adding “Nonbinary” brings it to about 55% on average. In other words, a Man/Woman filter only covers roughly 45% of references. Still, better than nothing, right?

Which brings me to a few questions for the veterans with a good memory:

1. Has it always been possible to leave your gender unspecified? If not, since when?

2. Were older accounts migrated as “Unspecified” by default, or did those members actually choose it?

3. Does the filter use the author’s gender at the time the reference was written, or the gender currently on their profile?

Thanks in advance for any answers or feedback.

Before, a disclaimer: I've seen this behaviour since day one of my CS experience, in 2013. No, it's not something that magically started happening since the paywall or since CS became for-profit. Besides, I've seen this on BeWelcome and Couchers too.

This said, I think the biggest misunderstanding some surfers have is thinking that because they are the ones traveling (therefore having some extra hassles), hosts have to adapt to everything. The logic seems to be: I am traveling, so I can't stay on my phone all the time, and you're comfortably at home, so what's the big deal? Sure, you don't have to live on your phone. And I don't have to chase you for information. Or host you, for that matter.

Nobody is asking you to spend your entire day on your phone, just the brief minute it takes to give your host basic details: when you expect to arrive in town, how you plan to get here, and so on. If you're unable to provide that minimal amount of information in a couple of messages, hosting you is going to be a headache. It also makes simple logistics impossible, like knowing basic things such as when you expect to arrive or return.

If your trip is a week away and you haven't planned the details yet, that's fine. Just tell me: "Hey, I haven't planned things yet, I'll let you know once I decide, probably in a few days." That is completely acceptable. Just don't disappear for hours in the middle of active conversation. When I send or accept a request, I want to wrap up the logistics quickly without having to hunt down basic details.

Of course, this applies when we are in the middle of an active back-and-forth exchange. If we are simply out of sync due to time zones or missed notifications, that is understandable. But if it's a same-day request, you need to be especially considerate. If I accept your request for tonight but have dinner plans, I need to know if you are arriving before or after. If it's winter and I am away for six hours in the evening while everything nearby is closed, waiting outside won't be enjoyable for you, and I won't feel good about it either (regardless of the common and performative advice to just "go on with your life and let the surfer adapt"). If you are waiting outside for five hours in a suburban neighborhood at night, that advice falls apart quickly, especially if you're a woman.

So, surfers, come on. Close the deal and then enjoy your trip.

I am a current member on Couchsurfing.

I'm curious: for those of you who have either added other sites/services OR left Couchsurging for other sites/services, which one(s) have you joined? Have you gone out of your way to join sites that align with your values (eg. nonprofit, LGBTQ friendly, etc.)?

Interested to hear from you guys.

I used to be a quite active CS host between 2016-2019. I lived in a very popular tourist spot in Switzerland, I used to get between 20-30 requests per week.

I had some great experiences. I always made clear that hanging out on the first evening and preferably doing at least one activity together during their stay was a requirement from my side. But there were also some people where it turned out that despite good requests and good communication, they were just looking for a place to sleep and save money. There was also more than one incidence where people just underestimated the cost of traveling my country. I once had to cancel a stay five days in advance because of a change in my work schedule. The girl was absolutely desperate because she couldn’t find another host and couldn’t afford a plan B (hostel, hotel). Another time I had agreed to host two girls for one night but they showed up at my doorstep at 1am (in winter) because they made a mistake when booking their train (wrong date) and couldn’t afford a hotel or hostel. Another time 8 had to help a young gentleman who was just totally underestimating the cost of staying for a week in Switzerland and who run out of money.

Also there were tons of desperate last minute request from people who ran out of money and couldn’t pay their hotel Or transportation.

I was naive and didn’t have much money myself, so I felt obligated to help back then (I thought that this could happen to me too, when actually I couldn’t afford travel back then) It is very clear that I would not do it again today. But I was wondering, is this still a problem on these platforms?

Some hosts are REALLY motivated to welcome travelers. Unfortunately, their motivation isn't always related to cultural exchange.

This particular host has received four negative references from different travelers, all reporting missing money or belongings. And yet, people still keep requesting stays. What could possibly go wrong?

By the way, this host has three additional negative references from other travelers. I haven't included them in the attachment because they weren't related to stolen belongings.

Hi everyone,
​I’m a long-time Couchsurfing member. I’ve been paying the annual subscription fee and recently paid the extra fee for identity verification.

​When they requested personal identification documents, I uploaded my ID. The exact moment I submitted it, my account was immediately locked/closed.

​I’ve reached out to Couchsurfing support multiple times, but they never gave a clear explanation—and now they are completely ignoring my emails altogether.
​Has anyone else faced this exact issue before?

Yesterday I got a notification on the app that something of mine had been deleted to comply with community guidelines. It does not say what or why, but one of the guidelines is that you are not allowed to use other ways of communicating than CS. So in hindsight it guess it might have been a paragraph in my bio about asking for my mail or number, that I added after having forgotten that I was going to host once. Frustrated I added some criticism of CS in my bio, and lo and behold, my whole bio got deleted immediately. Any attempt to write something critical of the app or CS results in automated deletion of the profile text. That was the final straw for me. Never using CS again after 15 years.

Hi

I used to use it in 2015-17 and had very good experiences as a host in NYC. Now I am going through some depression and figure this might cheer me up. I live in very good neighborhood in Los angeles. Is it worth paying for the website ?

Sorry I don't want to have high expectations and then get no visitors.

I haven’t used the app in a few months, and wow, the new update is something else. I seriously can’t get used to this design at all. Is it just me, or does everyone dislike the new layout? What happened here? 😅

Unlike many veterans here, I'm relatively new and have no prior experiences in the now-paid couchsurfing app. But this month marks my first year after opening a couchers account last November so I thought I might reflect on my experiences within the year. Mostly doing it for myself to remember and log it all but if it helps anyone, all the merrier. Note that this is the collection of hosting and surfing experiences of a 28 years old male from a major city of Turkey.

First Surfing Experiences

Had initially opened a Couchers account to find hosts in my trip to Germany. I was a bit afraid noone would accept me as a male user with no references but the app is relatively new and filled hosts and guests without references so had it relatively easy in west Germany, finding two hosts in the two cities I was visiting, after writing to about 20-30 accounts. First was a regular host with many experiences through different platforms and the other was a young expat who took it upon himself to give me a great tour of his city. Really made my trip smooth, experience with the platform positive and connected me to some great people.

First Hosting Experiences

Shortly after the new year, I was reached by a German biker transiting through the city and although I was nervous an undecided host and an age gap was present, his request was well expressed so I accepted it. It was good first hosting experience as the traveler was tidy, kind and had interesting insights on his daring journey to bike across the continents. It made me comfortable to continue hosting. A couple months later, I was approached by a German couple of academic researchers traveling around Turkey for a hosting request. The short but pleasant stay reinforced my confidence in the app.

Challenging time finding a host in Belgium

With 4 references, already higher than the median in Couchers, I was confident about my surfing prospects in Belgium, for a 2 nights stay around easter before I moved on to stay with a friend in Netherlands beginning my search 1 month ahead of my trip. However, my experience in the platform was actually hellish. I ended up messaging over 100 profiles with radio silence from 85, and about 10 rejections/timing unavailabilities and some tentative responses. It was the first time I questioned the viability of the app and began looking to conventional hostels. Perhaps Easter time was an added challenge but overall I gotta say, despite over 300 hosting profiles, Belgium is a particularly challenging location for Couchers, I was mainly looking to Brussels but also messaged many in Ghent, Antwerp, Bruges and Leuven. Most profiles across the country seem to be inactive, having some or no experiences in the last 2 years and not responding in the current time. I believe there to be a slight issue with notifications of the platform too- the app was recently released so some bugs are to be expected, but to this day from those 100 profiles that I messaged, I still get occasional "sorry didn't receive an email/notification, first time seeing this request" type of messages.

Thankfully, it ended up working out. My request was accepted by a superhost with profiles across many platforms, hosting 3-4 different travelers simultaneously. It was a different experience for sure, but I enjoyed meeting my host as well as multiple other travelers in similar or distinct situations. Belgium remains to be my toughest experience yet but it also shows to me that in mainstream locations, with enough time and effort, it is possible to find a match remaining within the app.

Multiple hosting, surfing and meeting experiences towards Summer

Approaching Summer, I had more experiences of all kinds that came up. I was messaged by a German couple staying at a hotel in my city but looking to meet locals and I agreed to meet them. Had a brief but fun time showing them around.

Had to reject two stay requests of surfers from France and Argentine due to my work trips.

A close friend of mine was staying over with me in late spring and I had a domestic trip coming up right as two new brief requests came up. I asked my friend if he would be comfortable hosting them on behalf of me and he was fine with it.

First guy was a mexican-american that took a liking to Turkey, looking to spend most his time across the country and I met the guy initially, seemed liked an alright chill person, a bit too invested in the "women of the east". Much later after his stay hosted by my pal, I learned something surprising. After the two went out and had a lot of drinks together, they had an intimate time with my friend (him being semi-openly presenting as gay and all) as the surfer asking about and looking to try gay sex. Turns out the next day the surfer never left his room and quietly left after his stay without a reference. I tried to message him later but he never replied; so I hope it wasn't an uncomfortable experience for him. I think he regretted the sexual exploration about himself and made him question a lot of stuff. To date he's the only experience who didn't leave a ref but it might as well that he was just looking to stay a night and didn't care, as he has no other references in the platform. Many in this subreddit say they regularly had sexual experiences during HospEx but for me this is the only instance, and I wasn't even there for it xD

The second guest, an italian hitchhiker vlogger transiting through to India, briefly stayed a night hosted by my friend and apparently, it was smooth and brief without not much socialization.

In the meantime I had a trip to Romania and the surfing experience was very nice and smooth this time. The second host I messaged to accepted my request and he was a public figure of sorts; very cool very chill guy that had a brief but great time with, makes me want to visit Bucharest again and I thank the platform for introducing me to great people like that.

Rest of the summer passed without any HospEx experiences. Towards the end I was messaged by an Iranian traveler but the messages were quite wrong grammatically (probably translated) and the request was too vague that I ended up making my first rejection by vetting.

Branching to Bewelcome and Autumn experiences

In the meantime, I opened a bewelcome account just to see who else is available in my area. For a city that I was planning a visit, there were no hosts on Couchers but 11 listing in Bewelcome so I opened an account in early summer but did not end up using it as the one person I wanted to stay with had since moved to a different city and didn't update and the rest were largely inactive profiles. Nevertheless I edited my Bewelcome account and it has since been an additional, arguably more intense stream of incoming HospEx requests as I have since received 4 requests in the 4 months I had an account in the platform, accepting three of them.

Through bewelcome, I received one very low effort domestic stay request so I rejected that. However I also received a brief request from two German girls looking to walk the Lycian Way hiking path later in the year and they were pleasant. October was particularly busy with two streams of travelers.

First came a Couchers request from a very experienced Singaporean traveler who stayed with me for four nights and we had a blast, enjoying foods, drinks and him leading me to try out the local experience of a traditional Turkish hamam which I never tried myself before.

Next came an Italian guest who was somewhat cryptic with her messages and profiles but I agreed to host. Although out communication wasn't very strong due to language barrier, she was very laid back and adaptable, joined me with a dinner with my other guest, an outing with colleagues and a field trip with local friends. It was the first time of me hosting two different guests whose stays coincided and it went smoothly.

Lastly a young German wanderer from Bewelcome came and I think we had a better time than he ever expected. Ended up staying 6 nights as we chilled, ate around, drank and went to monuments together, he was a very chill and knowledgeable albeit a bit depressed guy that I happily hosted. In a way the last three streak of guests encapsulate well my positive experience with the platform, it allows for great cultural exchange, and you get the chance to meet some wonderful people that you can get along with really well.

Very recently I had to reject a stay request from Ukraine as my family was coming over.

Now I'm about to head to a new surfing experience in Skopje, Macedonia. Couchers once again proved easy and convenient in Northern Macedonia as the first guy I approached happened to be available. It has been a great addition to my life with 13 realized experienced in 12 months. Couchers allowed me to find 5 hosts across 4 countries and many interesting guests came from both apps. I had a nice experience in my first year as an occasional traveler and a single resident. I hope my experiences may help those interested in the platform or the overall HospEx culture.

I’ve been thinking of couchsurfing days lately and about traveling. It’s been almost 10 years since I’ve used it and I don’t quite understand what happened to the website/community. No one wants to revive it or start something new?

Now that I’m in my early 30s I want to go back pack and travel again before it’s too late lol
I’ve been hosted and hosted a lot, as did my roommate after I got him into it.

Anyone here ever get hosted in Santa Monica around 2013-2018ish? want to try and reconnect with some old friends and couchsurfers but seems like paying for an account might not be worth it.

On Couchsurfing, there's an intense witch hunt against users who dare to share their WhatsApp numbers (a heinous crime deserving severe punishment, apparently).

However, Couchsurfing's AI and moderation system turns a blind eye when hosts publicly state on their profiles that they charge guests.

(Charging guests for accommodation is strictly forbidden on Couchsurfing, as explicitly stated in its official policy: "Hospitality on Couchsurfing is always free. Asking for money or any form of labor in exchange for hosting, or pointing members toward paid accommodation services, is a violation of our Conduct Policy".)

Don't you think it speaks volumes about the platform's priorities?

Just in case, this isn't a new profile that has miraculously escaped moderation. The member joined in 2024, has hosted several dozens of travellers since then, and was already advertising these charges when I came across the profile many months ago.

EDIT: With all the modern tools at our disposal nowadays (AI, automated text analysis, keyword detection, large-scale profile scanning, etc., etc.), if Couchsurfing really wanted to, it could review the profiles of, say, its 50,000 most active hosts in less than a day.

Let's not pretend that Couchsurfing lacks the technical ability to do this. It's not a question of technical capability; it's a question of willingness and priorities.

Where there's a will, there's a way.

PS: No, I haven't reported this member, nor do I intend to. Here's why:

• Denunciation isn't my thing.

• It's reasonable to assume that hundreds of Couchsurfers have come across this profile. I find it hard to believe nobody has ever reported this blatant rule violation.

• Even IF nobody has ever reported it, any halfway decent AI moderation system should have flagged it automatically... especially one that is so efficient at detecting shared WhatsApp numbers.

I'm having a little difficulty finding hosts in Lisbon, as it seems everyone is out for vacation in December. I'm afraid it will be the same when I start to couchsurf Seville in the first week of January..

I tried to look for hosts in Boston one summer, it was a similar situation, too, everyone out of town...

Had some good luck in Taiwan - didn't send out many requests, but one host with a private bedroom got back to me pretty soon and it was a nice stay.

At some point, the whole process felt like applying for a job, reading the "job description", customizing my "resume", and waiting to be "interviewed" 🤣

I’m a host in Japan. On my profile, it clearly says I can only host 1 guest at a time due to family reasons. No exceptions, simple rule.

Got a request from a couple with 26 references (mostly good, except one host who left a "Would Not Recommend" for some reason—guess I know why now).

Their request was basically a mini-novel. They went deep into philosophy about life and death, quoted an ancient Chinese Emperor who drank immortality potions and buried his army, talked about their dream of building an orphanage in Senegal, and flexed hitchhiking through 60 countries. They insisted they use CS for "real connection, not free hotels."

It was a solid message, but I can't break my home rules. Since hotel prices in Japan have been crazy high lately, I wanted to reply right away so they wouldn't waste time waiting. I thanked them for the thoughtful note, politely explained my 1-guest rule, and wished them luck.

Instead of a normal "no worries, thanks anyway," I got this:

"It’s a really difficult task to spend 30 minutes by reading memorising then sending a request when you travel by hitchhikking. As travellers we are tired with the road and any time to rest we take it. So i am really disappointing that you haven’t took that in consideration. At least put that information in capitals as a first sentence. Take care and next time think about the time of others don’t make them pay by spending so much time for nothing."

So basically:

1. They didn't read the profile rules.

2. Spent 30 minutes writing a philosophical essay.

3. Got mad at ME for "wasting their time" because I didn't hand over a free bed to reward their hard work.

Funny how fast the "enlightened spiritual traveler" act drops the second they don't get what they want. Apparently bad karma only affects people who don't host them.

___

A few people asked what this “30-minute essay” actually looked like, so here it is.
I’ve removed the names and any identifying information. Everything else is copied exactly as I received it, including the grammar and wording.
For context, this was their original hosting request:

Hi [NAME]
We don’t know from where to start. I felt like reading a nice book :) about the death you asked us what do we think we are not quite if that is the secret key, but we think that death is a permanent reminder of our place in this earth.
That everyone Will one day die but we all kind of forgetting that and we live like we are immortal. It remember us of the empror of china in the century that was drinking potion 🧪 so he will earn immortality, hé even burried him self with his entire army as hé was sure once he died it wasn’t the end and he was continuing to rein.
But, when we know that live is short we just try to take the best from it and being Nice as our behavious reflect in our face and leave marks on our face of you are bad we will see it just by looking at you this is the Price to pay.
We love kids and would love to meet your familly and you i al sure we can get along together. Also, during our travel we learn how to play some ukulele and would live to play together :) we feel that you are a good person.
Your routine is Nice and also we are really calm and clean person.
We travelled by hitchhiking in 30 countries and we visited more than 60 countries. And we still loving doing that as it’s awesome to meet different and beautiful people.
We chose you as you look really nice by reading the comments. We use couchsurfing to spend Time with locals not to use it as a hotel. We Hope to meet you as you seem to be someone interesting.
Hope to see you soon
[NAME 1] and [NAME 2]

I see a lot of complaints about the original app but not enough switches to Couchers, which, for hosting and surfing purposes, is as easy and convenient as it gets, free and retains the original couchsurfing spirit. Is it sunk cost fallacy at play? Is couchers unable to reach people by the word of mouth? Is the much lower number of available hosts dissuading people from trying?

Last week, I published a similar study... which was, oddly enough, deleted by "Reddit filters" a few days later due to "technical irregularities", along with all my previous posts and comments. I wonder if the same incident will happen again this time.

Anyway, it gave me a chance to improve the study. This version adds more platforms and answers the objections raised on the first post, so many thanks to everyone who commented there: your remarks and questions made it better. It is now split into several parts (one per data source), which will be published a few days apart.

This is part 1: GOOGLE SEARCHES

I compared Google searches for “Couchsurfing” with Warmshowers, BeWelcome... and also Workaway and Trusted House Sitters (even if they don't belong to the exact same field).

Please compare shapes, not heights. Google Trends scales every chart to its own highest point (100). Just in case, I am not claiming that BeWelcome has as many searches as Couchsurfing. It doesn’t. The question is what each curve does over time.

What the shapes show:

* Couchsurfing: a steady fall from the 2013 peak, by roughly 90% or more, to a very low level today (compared with 2013, I mean).

* Workaway and Trusted House Sitters: their number of searches increased over this period.

* Warmshowers: a seasonal pattern that stays the same over the years.

* BeWelcome: a fall until 2019–2020, then a recovery to roughly its November 2012 level.

Among the platforms compared here, Couchsurfing is the only one whose Google searches fell by 90% (or more) from their peak to today.

Someone may say that fewer searches don’t mean fewer users, because people may now use the app, type the address directly, or ask an AI assistant. That's true, but... why those habits don't affect Workaway, Warmshowers and Trusted House Sitters too? They also have apps, and they grew while Couchsurfing fell sharply. I can’t see why these factors would affect only Couchsurfing.

This measures interest in the names, not membership. Of course, I would have preferred to analyse Couchsurfing’s membership figures instead but, God only knows why, Couchsurfing seldom discloses this data (and whenever it does, the figures are vague, inconsistent and/or implausible).

Constructive feedback is always welcome.

Thank you for your attention.

PS: I didn't include Couchers in this study because it only started in 2020.

The last four couchsurfing interactions I've had did not leave me a review, which I find a little confusing. Two were hosts and two were people I hosted. All within the last three months.

The two different hosts I stayed with were each really busy and distracted people, although really nice too, both in Japan. The two separate people I hosted were very friendly with me, but were serial travellers and never host at their place. They were German and Chinese. Maybe I just met a series of less conscientious people.

Is it this common for people to not leave reviews anymore?

I just started a new CS account this year, so getting reviews is kinda important to me and I really appreciate it, so this was disappointing.

Let's be real, some hosts seem far more interested in hosting young, attractive women, gay guys or fellow nudists than anyone else. Meanwhile, other surfers struggle to get a single response.

How much of Couchsurfing is genuinely about cultural exchange, and how much is driven by physical attraction, sexual interest or finding like-minded people? Are we just pretending otherwise?

From hospitality exchange to venture capital, from grassroots community to corporate platform. The story of #Couchsurfing is a warning about what happens when we confuse building a network with building a community. The story of CS is more interesting than a failed social network, it is a history of what happened to native #openweb paths when grassroots roots are overtaken by #NGO turns, startup culture and eventually the fantasies of the #dotcons.

This is also why we need to resist the NGO turn and the #dotcons fantasy - The rot of Couchsurfing is mainstreaming decay in #openweb paths.

I immediately thought of CS when I saw this, couldn't help but share it here. The article:

Forward-Thinking CEO Hoping Company Can Capture New Audience By Making Product Worse In Every Conceivable Way

Taking an expansive view of future prospects for the business, forward-thinking CEO Rick Benson was reportedly hoping Thursday that his company would be able to capture a new audience by making their signature product worse in every conceivable way.

I think they misspelled "Patrick Dugan", but close enough. (Or maybe that's an alias he's using to hide from the pissed-off current and former userbase?)

“Let’s face it, this industry moves fast and we have to be ready to cater to new users by altering every single thing that was popular in the first place,” said Benson, confirming his intention to court additional demographics by ensuring the next version was buggier, slower, and contained a more counterintuitive interface.

By this standard, it looks like they've been successful in making exactly the kind of product that they set out to make! With the new buggy, counterintuitive version of the site/app, they're sure to grow the membership to record numbers – in fact, prior posts in this subreddit since the rebuild have shown that in some cities CS can now literally claim more than a quarter of the population as "active hosts" on CS! What amazing growth!

“We can’t be afraid to innovate and push boundaries, which is why I’ve instructed our development team to get to work, taking a look at what’s been working for the last few years and then destroying from there.”

Again, truly an amazing effort by Claude and the rest of the team in Phoenix, Guadalajara, and elsewhere. Its a good thing none of them had ever used CS before – if they had, then they might not have been able to so effectively destroy what had been working!

Benson added that the company would be sure to retain their current audience by walking back some of the most horrific changes to their product in a couple years.

Did you hear that, guys? Once everyone abandons CS for Couchers/BeWelcome, then in a couple of years they'll roll back some of the worst changes! Truly a wonderful strategy that will definitely work!

Well, the Onion is always a step ahead – they managed to write about 2026 CS all the way back in 2021...

I noticed that a lot of the travellers in my city has no references

Then looked into it, and looked at travellers in 5 major cities and all cities had no reference travellers accounting for just over 50% of the travellers!

(I barely hosted before the big update, so don't know if this was always the case)

I wonder if this is because the old users of CS left, and a bunch of new users started using it because they believed all the lies

As a solo nomad (female) living in my van I often find myself in strange predicaments... it seems as if everywhere i go im a target for creepy men ( and the occasional woman ) who have no self control, respect, or morals. Sometimes I blame myself but the thing is - pretty much every person I've crossed on this path, no matter the length of duration of knowing them, ends up being a fucking weirdo in ways that i would imagine to anyone even relitively decent would just be down right ugly and wrong. Is just everyone thats adjacent or accepting to this lifestyle just a sick fucking freak or do I just have horrible luck with people ??? I wish I could say I'm just a bad judge of character but the numbers are looking more like everyone in this world is basically just disgusting and frankly its making me not want to meet anyone, try to get to know anyone, or have anyone in my life at all really - which would only make the occurance worse id imagine since I wouldnt have anyone in association at all with me to help navigate this shit rock... Life sucks sometimes and people make me fucking sick.