2015-September-23 Honduras, Roatan: Couchsurfing

We worked out the other night we’d been in 20 different beds since we left our home in Narraweena to go walkabout. One third of these have been with Couchsurfing (www.couchsurfing.com) hosts.

For those of you that haven’t heard of it Couchsurfing is where people open up spare couches, rooms/beds or backyards for tents in order to help travellers out as they make their way around the world. The hosts don’t charge but most guests would prepare a meal or do something to say ‘thanks’.  For many hosts it’s a way of meeting interesting people and showing them the part of the world they live in. For others who have travelled it’s a way of giving back for times they were helped out and for others it’s ‘paying it forward’ in the belief that helping people out will pay off when the time comes for them to travel and experience the world. Not everyone that participates can host so they offer themselves to be a guide to the city during a travellers stay.

In San Diego we met someone who had used the site to travel across a fair bit of the USA with her teenage son and she informed us that you can filter on options for your own room, pets, smoking, age groups and the like. Up until then neither of us had really explored the option of couchsurfing for this trip. Primarily based on the name and a lack of interest in sleeping in peoples lounge rooms. When we had a sudden workaway cancellation we thought it was time to give it a try.

So far the experience has been, primarily, fantastic. We've meet some lovely, generous, welcoming people and been lent cars, taken to comedy shows, Buddhist Sangha pot luck dinners, yoga and dance classes and even given wake boarding lessons. We've shared some fantastic meals / evenings of conversation with a great diversity of people. All in all we've been humbled by the kindness of people towards us and are so pleased we gave it a go. Hosting ‘surfers’ when we do eventually return home is definitely on the cards for us.

We have another four hosts (6 nights) booked for a trip along the East Coast of the USA before we head to Peru. Both of us are looking forward to the experience and meeting more of the global Couchsurf community.

We should stress that we put a LOT of time researching who to request accommodation with. From confirming it’s a private room, checking they have logged on in the last six months, reading the details of feedback and going between the lines to see what sort of experience we could expect. It also helps that there are two of us and if we did get unlucky and turn up somewhere we feel uncomfortable we can call a cab and go to a motel if needed. 

Also, the reply rate for requesting a night is less than 50% so it helps if you have a system to keep track of who you've contacted. If you are keen to see our system give us a shout and we will send the excel tracker through we use.


The Couchsurf experience has definitely enriched our trip and given us insights into places and people we would never have had otherwise.