Saturday, November 05, 2005

Got couch?

"Couch surfers are people who are willing to socialize with strangers, who have a fundamental faith in the goodness of humanity," according to co-founder, Dan Hoffer. Couchsurfing.com was founded by Casey Fenton, who is a surfer himself.
The concept is simple: Everyday people such as you & I can offer our 'couch' on couchsurfing.com. It may be that we have room in the backyard for a tent, an extra bed, a spare apartment, or even a couch for a stranger to crash on. There's usually an availablility within 200 miles of your destination. It's free and can last from a cup of coffee to a few months.
Couch surfing spans worldwide. It's something that's just catching on in the states, but is already popular with young Europeans. One surfer, Alan Wilkes, learned Spanish in Madrid, attended a Woodstock-like meeting of surfers in Paris & met his Peruvian girlfriend via couch surfing. 29 year old Nathalie Vielleux couch surfed as she moved from Montreal to California & says she was treated like a queen. Dan Hoffer, 27, says he's drunk beer & played chess with an Indonesian farmer and even danced aboard a cruise ship with Italian hosts.

Here are some statistics:

~ There are presently 35,735 surfers
~ Approximately 13,820 successful couch surfings
~ There have been 15,626 friendships formed
~ Right now, 166 countries are represented
~ 8,111 cities have been host to surfers
~ 86 languages are represented via couch surfing
~ The #1 surfed country is U.S.A.
~ The #1 surfed city is Montreal, Quebec, Canada
~ Oceania accounts for 6.6% of couch surfers
~ The Russian language 3.9% of the surfing population.
~ The average age is 27. The youngest age possible is 2 (with parent)
and 99 (with child? lol)
~ There have been 2014 surfers traveling in groups of 2 or more.

To get started, register at their website & then surf for couches online. They have an online store & even offer some tips on couch surfing the world.

If you could go couch surfing, would you?

Technorati tags: couch, couchsurfing.com, U.S.A., Europeans, madrid, canada, russian, indonesian, italian

posted by jane at 5:29 PM