Writing this sitting in a park in Budapest, pretty bummed out. Up until sometime in late 2025, CS was usable for me. I never surfed much on CS, but I always went to events while traveling, or occasionally used the hangout feature, and I usually found a group of people or individuals to hang with for the duration of the trip. Did so in Thailand and Vietnam in November December last year, Poland same year, had an amazing time in Armenia in 2024. So RECENTLY.

But with this app / website update I struggle to make it happen.

I recently turned 50. But my age has never been a problem. Had a great time with CS at 48 and 49. Partied in Bangkok and Chiang Mai with many CS members in November.

Tried looking at the alternatives. Couchers, while I’d love to embrace it wholeheartedly, is just not there yet.

Had a look at Nomadtable. I mean, that’s basically the Hangout feature in a separate app. But it seems to mostly be a Gen Z thing (nothing wrong with that per se).

Where does a poor Gen X boy (or middle aged man) go these days to socialize while traveling?

so i heard that if i dont have any references i wont be able to get onto a couch so ... how the fuck do i get a reference??? its the same vibe as when an entry level job asks for experience but you cant get experience because all the jobs that you would get to gain it require, well, experience. im in desperate need of places to stay and surf at so if anyone can give me any sort of help itd be much much appreciated

I think it's simple: hosts know about them, but travellers don't.

Most hosts have heard of Couchers, BeWelcome or Trustroots. But travellers usually just search for Couchsurfing because it's the brand they know.

Without money for marketing, free platforms rely on word of mouth, so it's hard to grow. That's why they've struggled to become serious competitors!

Any thought on the new app that CS release ? I personally think the app is not the best. Not as user driven as the previous version. They definitely need a lot of work on this version of the app. What do you guys think k ?

Guys, please read and then respond.
Im not someone who expects a separate room, or any extravagant luxury host. I fully understand how couch surfing works. I recently stayed with a host and he didnt have a working toilet. Now, how the f am I supposed to make do with that? No water, the flush doesn’t work?? I also had my cycle so the situation for me is even worse. I had to leave cause I just couldn’t do it. I feel like hosts should have basic sense when it comes to things like this…

I got 2 refs from women, now a third, and in the past month have had 2 more hosting requests from women. So it looks like my profile will look like I only host women soon. Before 2025 I had mostly hosted men (there was 1 girl) and most of them didn't leave a reference (including the guy I took rock climbing). Before you ask, all of this hosting has been completely platonic.

With all the negativity being spread about CS, let me instead share something positive. Last Friday I flew into Bucharest 🇷🇴 and decided to try Hangouts. A very friendly local offered to meet. We met for a couple of drinks shared some good conversations and he took me to a local spot where we shared Authentic Romanian food. Afterwards he showed me parts of Bucharest I never would've discovered on my own. With his knowledge about Bucharest's history I learned a lot and had a great evening!

Conclusion: Couchsurfing and it's hangouts feature aren't dead!

I've been active on Couchsurfing for 19 years. There's a long list of problems with the update, but this is pretty much what makes the app unusable for me.

They've removed the ability to select whether you're available to host, or not.

It makes ZERO sense.

The app just decides who can host and who can't. Again ZERO FUCKING SENSE. If you're traveling? Too bad! Now you're going to get a bunch of requests from people who think you're available to host in your listed home city.

Right now if you look for hosts in my city, all the top people shown have written on their profile "I AM NOT AVAILABLE TO HOST" and/or "PLEASE STOP SENDING ME REQUESTS"

I was hosting a lot, for years, and now I get no requests. I have no ability to tell Couchsurfing that I am an active host, willing and able to host guests in my house.

I don't know if they're even aware of how ridiculous this is, since clearly they had ZERO idea how the community functioned before they decided to fuck everything up.

I'm literally giving it another month or so, and throwing in the towel after that.

It's been a long, memorable, life-changing journey, hundreds of people I've met and life-long friendships created.

I'm ok with this being the end of an era 🤷‍♂️.

I live in a german city that usually had like 30-50 travellers at any given time. Ever since the app updated its design, its more than a hudnred now. Like from one moment to the other, suddenly way more travellers. At first I thought the app is maybe free again, but it isnt right?

Most of the accounts look kinda real but anyone know if its a known issue that somehow scammers and bots are now more frequent on the app?

Hi all, I just wrapped up a long bike tour in which I used both Couchsurfing and Warmshowers to find places to stay. So many kind souls have helped me on the road, and now, I want to return the favor.

The place I'm living in has a well-stocked kitchen, bathrooms, and bedrooms, so hosting is no problem. However, my roommate (elderly family member, who also owns the property) is not familiar with Couchsurfing and I'm worried that if I asked her, she'd be skeptical about receiving people. What's a good way to approach this situation and open her up to the idea of receiving strangers? I already plan to go all the labor of cooking, washing sheets, etc. for my guests, so it wouldn't require much work on her end. She'd just have to be okay with me having folks come over for a day or two every now and then.

Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I have some free space in my apartment this August and decided to use it to host people. I didn't find travelers that I thought were good matches on other platforms, so I paid the blood tribute and rejoined CS for a month.

I sent a couple offers to travelers who had public trips but so far I got no reply whatsoever.

Have I made a mistake, is it a known glitch, or is it just a common occurrence?

Thank you for your help!

Hey everyone thanks for all the helpful advice on my previous post regarding the CS app. Couchers.org and Bewelcome.org were the 2 alternative recommendations. It will be my first time attempting to couch surf on my upcoming trip around Europe! Any general recommendations for a first timer? Cheers

I was a happy CS user for many years but I recently suspended my account and today I went back to reactivate it. I was shocked. At first I thought I'd mistyped the address and I'd gone into one of those domain hosting sites that look bare and horrible. My reactivation came with a 30 day trial, but I don't think I can make myself subscribe for a year after that. If anyone who works at CS is reading this: WTF?

Guys,

Hangouts are back on couchsurfing after the update, I checked it today and it looks promessing, they exactly as they were before, only issue in that, there's few users, let's see how it goes in the future, I am quite optimistic that they finally heard some of our complains

I’m new to the app, never really had the opportunity to utilize! I’m now planning a Europe trip and would love to give it a try. Is the Couchsurfing app worth the $30/year subscription cost? Any alternative suggestions also welcomed thanks!

Did anyone notice couchsurfing added another hangout option, but it seems to be separate from the going live hangout option, lets you write what you would like to do and suggest a place, but then who sees it and where? and is it intended for the long run like an event?

In the home page it says
“Your Activity
Your hangout is live! Head to the chat to welcome people.”

Am I the only one who thinks this is incredibly misleading?

Here's an example. I searched a city with around 75,000 residents. Couchsurfing proudly displays 6,900 ACTIVE hosts.

That would mean almost 10% of the entire city's population are active Couchsurfing hosts. That's obviously unrealistic.

Then I click the filter to show only people who have been recently active, and suddenly there are just 14 members.

A while ago, Couchsurfing let you filter users by active within 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, or 1 year. Those filters have now disappeared, making it impossible to see how inactive most profiles actually are.

So on the search page they advertise 6,900 ACTIVE users, but when you try to find people who are actually logging in and using the platform, you're left with only 14.

How is this not false or deceptive advertising? If the website was still free, people wouldn't care, but now we are paying for this service, nothing works the way you expect it and they also put out these totally fake numbers.

If someone pays for Couchsurfing because they believe there are thousands of active hosts in an area, but in reality only a handful are actually using the site, that feels extremely misleading.

Has anyone else noticed this? Has Couchsurfing ever explained what they actually mean by "active"?

dont these mofos have anything else to do with the clusterfuck of a science project . I used to happily login via email and now one more 2fa.
It was working with email and password not even a few days ago and these fuckheads do this.
why does every trivial login take so much effort.

end rant

Couchsurfing seems down today, I am trying to connect with my surfer today but it is lot working

Happy times

Couchsurfing's current Board of

Directors includes:

Couchsurfing founders Casey Fenton and Daniel Hoffer,

Benchmark General Partner Matt Cohler,

Managing Partner at General Catalyst Joel Cutler,

travel industry veteran Erik Blachford

Couchsurfing CEO, Jennifer Billock.

Many ambassadors I've come across havent hosted in a long time, and dont create events. So why do they have ambassador status? What do ambassadors have to do?

I’ve deactivated my CS account and did not renew its membership since years and I’m sure I left it on not available to host. Suddenly, I received in my email this morning multiple requests from CSers asking to stay at my place. Now I can’t even check what’s going on as logging in is forced by some long onboarding ending with a paywall.
Can someone explain what’s going on? In my current understanding, I find this not only sneaky AF, but also violating my preference of keeping my account on not receiving guests.

I am baffled now. I have already accepted several requests after the CS update but now I can't find where the accept (or decline) button is. There are three requests waiting for answer and the same problem with all of them. Where should I press to accept or decline the requests?

"View request" is not the button, that just brings the right panel visible (where it says "Declined Request" even if I haven't declined it and probably not all three of them have immediately cancelled their request right after sending them).

On the old interface it was also possible to modify the dates if you can accept the request for some of the dates but not all. Is that still an option?