Couch surfing around the world

RTW travel, why we travel — By Bob Riel on August 22, 2007 at 7:46 am

Travel is always interesting, no matter how you do it. But the chance to interact with locals tends to take the experience up a level. So I was interested to read this article in the Boston Globe about an organization called Couch Surfing that connects people around the world by offering free places to stay in each other’s homes.

On a recent Saturday morning, five twentysomethings huddle in a cozy living room to map out their day. Two are from Montreal. Another is from Chicago. The hosts, Jesse Fenton and Erin Benoit, have lived in the apartment for three years. The guests have had plans to visit for more than a month, but their only contact with their hosts has been through computer screens.

The five met through CouchSurfing.com, an online network of travelers, mostly in their 20s, who are tired of staying in hotels and hostels and who want to see the world with a free place to crash — often on someone’s couch. But what sets CouchSurfing.com apart from a bevy of similar free services such as hospitalityclub.org is its focus on its mission, which according to the group’s website “is not just about free accommodations” but about human interaction.

“It makes the world a smaller place,” says Benoit, 25, a medical technologist at Boston Medical Center. “Eventually, we’ll have friends all over the world.”