This site is for travellers looking to break off track. Here you'll find tips, advice and news on finding alternative travel experiences. Read on to stay up-to-date with all that's going on in the fields of couchsurfing, hospitality tourism, travel networking and home exchanging.
Proof that the word "couchsurfer" was around before 2004-established Couchsurfing.com. Here's an extract from Couch surfer, a Bran Van 3000 song released on their 1998 album, Glee. The band come from Montreal, which is the third most active city in the Couchsurfing.com network.
Alongside a refrain of "I'm couch surfing, I'm a couch surfer", choice lyrics include:
"Can I crash at your place again? Just one more night?"
Plus a finale where the couchsurfer appears to have overstayed his welcome.
"Mind if I eat those chips? Oh that's okay, I don't like salt and vinegar anyways. No no no, I didn't use pay-per-view. I figured it was free.
Yeah, I'm going. I'm a couch surfer, couch surfing "
I am a freelance travel journalist. This blog is inspired by a weekly column in the Guardian based on my travel-networking experiment across Central and South America called Going Local (www.guardian.co.uk/goinglocal). It contains news and musings on the rising popularity of hospitality tourism and travel-networking sites, plus anything to do with getting out of the typical tourism bubble.