MI SOFÁ ES SU SOFÁ
A travel alternative that’s taking over the globe  

Story by Emily Totten // Photography by Heidi Weber & Elizabeth Myers

If you were planning a trip to Europe, or any other continent, by the time you added in airfare, a place to stay, food, souvenirs and maybe even a rental vehicle, you’re looking at a couple thousand dollars. Now imagine being able to eliminate a large portion of that amount. Sounds great, right? Well, if you’re comfortable sleeping on strangers’ couches in a foreign place, these next two words could be your ticket out of here.

Couch surfing. It’s when travelers go to strangers’ homes and crash on their couches for as long as the hosts are comfortable with letting them stay. You can find couches to sleep on from just about any place in the world.

Oh, and it’s completely free of charge.

CouchSurfing.com is sort of like your “cultural connection.” It aims to “internationally network people and places, create educational exchanges, raise collective consciousness, spread tolerance and facilitate cultural understanding,” according to its mission statement. The non-profit organization’s site represents 223 countries and 420,308 members, so there’s something for everybody.

The Web site offers not only a cheap way to travel, but it’s an easy way to make international contacts. When registering, a user doesn’t necessarily have to say they want to travel or host. There’s a third option where a user can choose to meet their contacts, maybe spend a little time with them on their home turf, but then go their separate ways. This is a better option for those who don’t feel comfortable sleeping in a random somebody’s house or letting a random somebody sleep in theirs.

Junior finance major Ilya Poklad was leaving for a trip to Sweden and Latvia with his dad, and then to Denmark by himself for a few days. While looking at travel sites on Yahoo! a week before he was to be in Denmark, Poklad came across an article on couch surfing. Immediately, he made a profile on Couchsurfing.com and sent out several messages to people in Denmark. A couple days went by until he made affirmative plans with a girl named Giedre in Copenhagen, Denmark, until almost right before he was in Denmark.

“My parents gave me money for a hotel, but (couch surfing) was free … so I kept their money,” Poklad says.

“It was perfect, though,” says Poklad of his English-speaking Denmark host. “The first day I was there we just walked around and she showed me all the local spots.”

Poklad went on to say how trusting Giedre was of him. “She would leave to go to work while I was still sleeping, and she just told me to lock the door behind me whenever I left to go do some sightseeing.”

Although Poklad’s couch is up for grabs on the Web site, he hasn’t hosted anyone yet.
Of course, there is a large risk in either going into a stranger’s home or letting a stranger into yours. However, there’s good news for someone who wants to travel or host — or both — that will lower those risks. According to the site, CouchSurfing has several precautionary measures, including making sure addresses and names are legit and rates members by levels of trust (a level 3 verified member has been approved several times as being safe). The most important, however, is the tried and true system of being vouched for — members vouch for other members, creating a “circle of trust” that each couch is soft and safe.

Emily Totten is a freshman magazine journalism major. This is her first story for The Burr.