Why pay for expensive hotels abroad when you can simply crash in someone's house for free? Gillian Hamillmeets the international couchsurfers
As the tourist season heats up, many student holidaymakers will be eschewing the typical "break and bake" sun holiday in favour of something off the beaten track. Whether it's trekking over Kilimanjaro, or InterRailing across Italy, the problem is these intrepid explorations don't come cheap. More often than not, in an attempt to stretch a tight budget to capacity (without reaching breaking point), a strict diet of "frill-free" accommodation is required. This normally involves a myriad of "colourful" B&Bs, budget hotels, and hostels where the lockers don't work and your bunk-mate snores. However, there is another option which may float your "boatel" - motel on a boat, that is.
Couchsurfing.com has more than 900 members in Ireland alone. In a nutshell, couchsurfing is not some strange new form of extreme sport, but involves sleeping on a stranger's sofa anywhere in the world, or indeed offering up your own sofa as a haven to like-minded travellers.
Although a generous idea in principle, several doubts may spring to mind on first hearing this proposition, not least that of security.
How do you know the person you've exchanged a few friendly e-mails with is actually a trustworthy, sane and honourable individual? What if you wake up the morning after hosting to find your new flatscreen TV has disappeared? Couchsurfers are not oblivious to these concerns, but trust seems to be the cornerstone on which the idea was originally founded.
Trish Loughman (43), a teacher at Larkin Community College, Dublin, who has been hosting couchsurfers regularly since 2004, says her guests say their friends are often incredulous about their decision to stay with a stranger.
"All their friends have said, 'Are you mad?' You hear their phones going with texts and calls checking they're not dead yet," she says, somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
But Keith McGee (26), a CS (couchsurfing) ambassador living in Dublin's city centre reckons: "It is the best feeling in the world to be able to hand over your house keys to someone. You are instantly giving them trust and it's up to them to break it." This fits in with the couchsurfing philosophy: "Participate in creating a better world, one couch at a time." Indeed, couchsurfing means much more to its members than just getting free digs. Its website states that through cultural exchange, it aims to change not just "the way we travel, but how we relate to the world". In fact, owning a spare couch is not even a pre-requisite for joining the organisation; you can sign up simply to meet people from all over the globe for a quick coffee or chat.
However, both couchsurfing.com and a similar website, the Hospitality Club, categorically state that they are not dating sites. Incidentally, this did not stop Keith McGee from receiving a marriage proposal out of the blue from a stranger in Senegal. On a serious note, however, the websites do give advice on how to report any behaviour you might regard as inappropriate. But, in general, platonic love for everyone is much more what couchsurfing is all about and this was reflected by a "free hugs day" held by the Irish branch on Dublin's Henry Street several months ago. McGee says the reaction to this was "fantastic", if a little bemused. A few Dublin macho-men scorned the idea, and one woman asked if the group was conducting some sort of social experiment, but the majority happily received a comforting bear hug, probably relieved that they weren't being asked to hand over their hard-earned cash.
Although couchsurfing is about giving, there's no need to give your life to the project. There is no obligation to host anyone at a particular time or anybody you feel you would simply not gel with. A person's website profile can give quite a detailed insight into their life, containing their likes and dislikes, photographs and their personal mission, which, given the enthusiasm of most couchsurfers, is something along the lines of carpe diem. McGee thinks it's pretty easy to tell whether you're going to get along with a person or not shortly after meeting them. "You normally get a gut instinct about people straight away," he says.
Besides, there's nothing wrong with having a preference for what kind of person you would like to stay with you. Trish Loughman thinks men make better guests. "They're so conscious about not wanting to mess up anything. Young American women will ask me - do you have hair straighteners? Really, do I look like I own a pair of hair straighteners?" she laughs, briskly tugging her short hair.
Couchsurfing can provide some real pluses to the newly arrived tourist. Their host can help them avoid the traps visitors normally fall into. Loughman notes "They all want to go to Temple Bar but I'll suggest my favourites, such as Romano's on Capel Street, where you know you've had a good feed." Also, with the eclecticism and variety of the organisation's membership, you never quite know what is going to happen on a night out. Eoin Bennis and Anthony O'Grady from Dublin's Bayside found this out when a Dutch journalist came to stay with them and they ended up meeting the Czech Republic's national football team.
McGee sums up the excitement and unpredictability of couchsurfing as being "about meeting real people and bringing something really simple back into the world. There's an element of trust and respect [ at its] core understanding." Perhaps couchsurfing is an official version of that old maxim, the kindness of strangers?
