Couchsurfing was sketchy 10 years ago but I gave it another shot last summer

I used to think Couchsurfing was only for people who wanted free beds and nothing else. Back in 2014 I tried it in Portland and had a weird host who just wanted to talk about conspiracy theories all night. But last summer I needed to do a 2 week trip through Colorado on a $400 budget and figured why not try again. I stayed with a guy in Denver who showed me the best hiking spots and a lady in Colorado Springs who cooked me dinner. Both had solid reviews with like 50+ references and I never felt unsafe. So now I'm thinking maybe the community just got better at filtering out the sketchy people. Anybody else have a bad first experience with Couchsurfing that turned around later?

3 comments

3 Comments

daniel14022d ago

Oh dude, is that really how it is now? Lol I had such a similar thing happen. My first time was in 2016 and this host in Austin just wanted to party all night and left me stranded at 2am. I swore it off for years but tried it again last fall in Asheville and met this super chill couple who took me to a waterfall hike and even let me borrow their car to run errands. Its wild how much the whole vibe has shifted, like good reviews really do mean something now and people are more upfront about what they're looking for. I think the app changing how you verify your profile helped a ton too.

blair_taylor3221d ago

The review system really does change everything. Back in the old days you just had to trust a profile picture and a vague paragraph about loving travel. Now you can see if someone has 100 positive reviews or if they only have 2 and both are suspicious. It makes the whole thing feel more like Airbnb where you have some accountability. That verification stuff definitely helped too because it weeds out people who just make a profile on a whim. Honestly I think the community got smarter over time and learned that being weird or creepy just gets you bad reviews and no more guests. So the people who stick around now are the ones who actually want to host for the right reasons.

wesleyb2022d ago

...and honestly I'm just glad I didn't have to crash in a van with a guy named Doug talking about chemtrails again lol. My second host in Denver actually told me upfront she hosts because her dog gets lonely, and I was like okay that's weirdly honest and way better than the last time. So yeah, seems like the creep factor went way down once people figured out you can just check reviews like a normal person.