0:00 welcome to travel hacks again I'm Alexander Travelbum and today we're going over couchsurfing so couchsurfing is an amazing half an amazing website it is one of my favorite things in the world when I went to Europe a few years ago I didn't have that much money I wanted to spend as much time as I could there and I only had six thousand dollars now in the end I ended up spending six months there so as you can tell that's Alex thousand a month spent in Europe and that included traveling around food beer events fun how do you do that in Europe that's that's difficult well thing that saved me was
0:46 couchsurfing and so today we're going to go over how to do counselor thing what is it how to do it right how to get more hosts how to meet people etc so couchsurfing is great you can stay on people's couches for free alright that's great it saved me a ton of money and that's how I was able to last for six months in Europe but that's not the best thing about it the best thing about it is that you stay with locals stay with a local you you become friends with them I made a ton of good friends in Europe while I was doing it some of which have come visit me since and we're basically going to be friends for life the other good thing about it is tonight's getting a host and
1:32 a place to stay you can also use it simply to meet people to hang out so there's a feature now or you can do a hangout you can make a hangout for multiple people or you can ask directly one person if they want to grab coffee grab a drink or go out for the night or have them show you around so some people have a hard time finding hope when they're couchsurfing and this could be for a number of reasons this is what you want to do you want to fill out your profile completely right about yourself there's a description in your about Me section write about yourself write about your travel history write about your upcoming trip write about
2:18 whatever you want but but be truthful and you know try to find something interesting about yourself that is going to make them want to host you and become your friend there's also an interest section what's interesting you hopefully travel if you're traveling so put that on there that's probably plus ah what movies you watch music what books do you read all of that there is a section for all of this and if you hopefully you'll fill that out completely and I've gotten hosts just based on that I host that like let's say music of me and because we had this common interest they were more likely to pick me why I'm on couchsurfing this is another this is
3:03 another part of your about me why are you on couchsurfing don't say it's because you want to travel for cheap tell them it's because you want to meet them talk about how you how you want to participate in couchsurfing as a whole and maybe how you in - host surfers of your own when you get back from this trip if you haven't already you can put your travel history where you've been to where you want to go where you've lived so my profile is all based around travel because that's what I like to do I like to travel and I have a lot to say on here but if you haven't travelled that much then just explain how you want to travel more or maybe just explain about this one trip
3:49 and then also explain your interests and just try to make yourself sound interesting, funny fun basically your your best traits try to bring them out in your profile photos you do not want to forget about the photo section I can't tell you how many profiles have zero photos or maybe they have one photo you know I it's going to be difficult to get a host or get people to hang out with you when you have zero photos not because they care where you look like it's because it seems a little sketchy like why when you have a single photo you have an iPhone you have a phone everybody has photos these days easily why would what do you have to hide and
4:37 then if you have one photo it's also that it's like pieces of flair why do you have one piece of flair when you can have 50 don't do the minimum have you know have more than one that also seems kind of shady like you could only find one one photo of yourself and that's it it worry is it dark make sure it's a good photo make sure you're smiling but if you can put a lot of photos in there it's not because you're into yourself it's because it explains a little more visually about who you are anybody can write whatever they want about themselves and they can be lying about the whole thing but a few photos of yourself photos don't lie well photos can lie definitely they they
5:25 can lie but the more you have the more that it shows you you probably aren't lying on fifty photos it's going to show who you are what you look like what do your background where you're from and so it makes people maybe a little more trusting put up good photos be happy smile a little bit if you are a traveler if you have been traveling before put up your travel photos then they can really see that you genuinely interested in their culture and even the best for photos once you've had a few couchsurfing experiences make sure you're taking some photos with your new friends in different parts of the world I have a section here called couchsurfing it shows me having amazing experiences with the people who hosted
6:12 me and the people whom I have hosted and that is just the best who is going to find you untrustworthy who's going to thank you you're going to be a bad couch surfer if they can see you with your hosts and you're all smiling and having fun they're going to see that and think hey if you did this with twenty other with twenty other hosts then it's going to be the same with me I want to hang out with this person now the section that matters the most is references now I've done a little bit of couchsurfing so I have references and so far they're all positive these all my hosts have left these really good reviews about me and it's great and that helps tremendously but a good way to get these
7:01 amazing reviews instead of just you might have a positive experience with a host or as a-- or as a host and you might find that after they stay with you they leave a positive review but they really quickly put amazing experience or he was great but you want something better you want to stand out from the crowd so what you should do is after you have a couchsurfing experience you want to be the first to leave a review then you leave a long-drawn-out detailed experience about what you guys did hey we did this and it was great we ate this I say with them I would surf with them again I
7:47 would trust them with my life we're going to be friends for life say things like this leave a long paragraph or two and if you do this chances are if they're human they're going to leave a long expensive amazing review for you back they feel a little weird about leaving you a sentence review when you just left them 20 but of course the first way to get good reviews is to be an amazing host or couch surfer make the bet don't sleep in too long or get up too early don't be loud and wake them up while they're sleeping basically you know the drill do as you would like to be done to you which brings me to the next thing you should host people give
8:34 back don't just take all the free accommodation don't just stay for free everywhere around the world and never give back you need to see what it's like actually actually actually this would be first if you know you're going on a trip and you know you're going to be doing some couchsurfing and staying with people for free you should host people before you go first of all this is a good way to get reviews so that you don't have the reviews when you go over there begging for people for a place to stay make an account and say that your couch is currently available and you'll start getting the emails rolling in so the best host that I ever had they were just some of my favorite people in my whole life my first host ever was in Italy and she
9:22 was she's one of my favorite people in my whole life that I have ever met she bought me traditional Italian food she taught me how to cook pasta she gave me a bath robe bath towel to give me not just the couch but a whole room to myself and then after a few days staying with her she all of a sudden she had to go to Paris on a business trip for a week okay she didn't kick me out she only knew me for three days and she said hey you can stay here I'm going to be gone for a week you can stay here and not only did she let me stay there she filled the fridge with Italian goods she she made limoncello and and let me drink it the fridge was
10:10 full of all these amazing Italian foods she brought me out shopping she paid for all of it she didn't have to do any of that but she's an amazing person and I will never forget her for all of that and that's the kind of host that you want to be take your couch surfer out for a night on the town cook them a traditional meal wherever you're from cook them something from that area or if you can't cook bring them out to dinner make it as comfortable as it possibly can be for them wherever they're sleeping and be a friend just hang out with them but also if they seem like they want to do some of their own thing around town let them do that as well you don't have to be with them the whole time but you know there's a happy medium
10:55 between being there all the time and none of the time so the hardest thing about couchsurfing is finding hosts and actually getting them to host you so what you're going to do is you're going to find people in the area and you're going to send them a couch request which is basically a message what you want to do is call them by name say hello Adam and you need to personalize the message let them know that you actually read their profile and there's a reason that you're picking them to stay with them because a lot of couch surfers what they do is they don't want to take the time so they send out a hundred messages they copy paste the same exact thing and they send it to a hundred hosts and see what
11:41 sticks the thing is you're going to do much better if you write a personalized letter to each one that you're interested in show them that you read their profile by saying hey you good taste in music you know you seem like a cool guy I saw your picture from Venezuela and you know I've always wanted to go there so you know maybe you could tell me a little bit about that if you choose to host me write them a detailed letter and then it out you're not going to get every host - right - but you're going to have way better chances if they see that you're legitimately interested in them as a person and not just getting a free place to stay especially in the big cities this is the only thing that is probably going to work in big cities San
12:30 Francisco New York London Paris sometimes it is tough tough finding hosts because guess what they're getting 50 couch requests per day and they have to go through all of them and most of them are going to be the same hey I need to please say can you give me placed a blah they're going to go right through those and delete all of them until they see one from you I want to learn a little bit of your language can you teach me a few things I see you've been to Rome I've been there too let's talk about it and if you find that you're having a really hard time getting hosts try doing the meetup instead you might be able to meet up with someone because that's a lot easier for some people to
13:16 do not everyone is offering a couch and a place to stay for a stranger but a lot of people are on couchsurfing just to meet tourists to hang out with them to get a little bit of a cultural exchange you'll find it easier to get one of them to meet you for coffee or something then if you're cool enough if you're friendly enough if you're nice and you guys become friends they might say hey I know you're staying in a hostel for tonight do you want to stay in my place that has happened to me a ton of times as well and I actually wasn't looking for a place to say I just meet people I just meet people out because I want to meet someone from the area and make a new friend and they end up hosting me anyway
14:02 so at the beginning you're probably lots of very beginning you're not going to have any reviews and when you don't have any or you only have one it's going to be tough one easy way to get a jump start is to have one of your friends maybe maybe of some kind of friend that is already on couchsurfing if it's hooked up to your Facebook then you see that chances are you have some kind of friend who is already on couchsurfing connect with them on couchsurfing and leave them a nice review without asking them to do anything they'll see that you left this nice review chances are they will reciprocate and leave you a nice review back and if they don't maybe after a week say hey did you see my review about you and they'll say oh yeah I'm going to leave you one soon
14:49 or maybe they won't then that might be your chance to ask them so if you get one two or three friends to do that maybe you'll start out with a few reviews and it'll show that you have one two three positive references which is a great start and you will get more posts looking at your profile instead of just deleting it straight away for having no references because I'll tell you what I have hosted people and when people have zero references I don't even look at it because who knows they could be anybody no pictures no references no okay the final and last thing it does cost I believe twenty dollars but you can get verified I actually am NOT verified yet
15:35 because I have all my references already I had no problem getting hosts but I'm probably going to do it especially because I want to support the platform couchsurfing is free and it offers so much to people around the world and it has given me so much that I want to pay them a little bit and it gives you a little green badge next to your name which means your verified and it means your real person it's a lot easier for them to find house because they're verified and they're they're not just some random creepy no picture no review guy on the internet that is the way to do couchsurfing right I have no problem getting hosts anymore and you don't have to either so please like this video give it a
16:22 thumbs up and I want to hear from you if you have any other tips if you have any experiences or if you have any questions for me leave a comment below and I will get back to you let me know what else you want answered I've done it a lot I have a lot of experience with it and I won't answer everything below or make another video thanks for watching I'm Alexander I'll see you on the next video
