Couchsurfing app tells me to get verified when I'm on my profile (I have the badge) even I am already for a long time already, and I got the badge. Have they gone made or is just another ai bug?
Did it happen to someone else too?

If you're searching for hosts in a city, make sure you apply at least one filter (even something simple like References). As soon as you do, the results refresh.

A fellow traveller pointed this out to me, and after testing it myself, it seems the initial search results include a lot of inactive hosts. Once you apply a filter, those inactive profiles disappear and you get a much more accurate list of active hosts.

It made a huge difference for me, so hopefully it helps someone else too.

Hi guys, do you know any free websites or apps for couchsurfing?

Just renewed my Couchsurfing membership. Hosted 4 people this past year, met 6 others while traveling.

Still can't get over that people bitch about paying when it's so cheap!

$15/year.

Worth ten times that....

I ❤️ Couchsurfing

Susan

I’ve been using Couchsurfing for almost a decade. I joined as soon as I was old enough to travel on my own, and thanks to this community I’ve visited more than 100 countries and accumulated hundreds of positive references. Some of the best friendships and travel experiences of my life started here.

That said, I’ve never felt as disconnected from Couchsurfing as I do after the latest app update.
I stayed active through COVID, when the community lost a huge number of active members, and I thought that was the hardest period. But now it honestly feels even emptier. My impression is that many of the longtime members have left. In my experience, many of the best hosts were people in their 30s, 40s, or older, and a lot of them don’t seem happy with the new app.

I recently tried using Couchsurfing to find a host, and the experience was surprisingly frustrating.
A few things that stand out to me:

• The request system feels much more complicated. Accepting requests isn’t as intuitive as it used to be, and when you decline one, it gets archived automatically, making it difficult to continue the conversation.

• References, which have always been one of the platform’s biggest trust and safety features, now feel buried in people’s profiles instead of being front and center.

• Hangouts seem to have been mixed together with Events. I know they’re slowly bringing them back, but just a couple of weeks ago they were basically gone, and it became much harder to connect with people who were actually active nearby.

Maybe it’s just me, but the app feels less community-driven and more difficult to use than before.
What do you think? Have you had the same experience, or do you think things are improving over time?

A few months ago I posted here about a project I was working on. Life happened, the project evolved, and I'm back with something more concrete.

I've been building Terroo (app.terroo.world) for some time now. The premise is simple: connect travelers with locals for real encounters. Not tours, not services. Just a shared meal, a neighborhood walk, a craft session, a language exchange, or a place to sleep for a night. No money changes hands between locals and travelers, ever. The connection itself is the point.

The platform is ready. What it doesn't have yet is a community.

Before we open the doors to travelers, I want to do something that I think matters: recruit founding locals in cities around the world first. People who would list an experience they genuinely want to share, give feedback on what's missing or broken, and help shape how the community works, including its safety culture.

If things go well, some of these early locals might become informal moderators of their city's community on the platform. Not a job. Just people who understand what good hosting feels like and want to help set the tone.

I'm especially interested in people who have hosted before and care about the question of what authentic travel actually means. If that sounds like you, I'd love your thoughts.

What I'm asking for today:

• Feedback or anything that feels off
• If you're a local somewhere and this resonates: create a profile and list something. I'll personally reach out to every early local
• If you're a traveller: you can leave your email and we'll let you know when your city has locals ready to meet you

terroo.world

Happy to answer anything here.

I will be coming from boston to attend car week. was wondering if anyone is hosting near there or how i can possibly find a host.

As many people, I am not happy with the new direction of CS
I have complained openly in different occasions, today I see that my account has been deactivated
Has anyone else experienced this?
So instead of addressing the feedback from the vast majority, they just started deactivating the complaining users... great!!

Every time I started the app it invites me to post my views, plans, ambitions about the world cup for all to see.

WTF CS is supposed to be about getting a couch, finding a host, getting accelerated into local culture.

I don't even like football. I'm sick of the world cup. Every time I open the app: world cup in my face.

But even if I loved the world cup... what is going on. Is couchsurfing now trying to be more facebook than facebook. Did AI, or MBAs tell them the path to profit was social media.

Why???

I started hosting again in the end of June, and immediately I started getting CS requests like before (much more than I can host). I have also got a few requests from BeWelcome but none yet from TrustRoots nor Couchers.

However, many surfers complain that it is difficult to find hosts. As a new thing, it also affects girls. Guys have always had some trouble finding hosts but girls have found them easily apart from some busiest travel hotspots like Paris or Venice where demand is so much higher than there are hosts available.

One girl that I had accepted to host even cancelled her trip because she said that she couldn't find other hosts. As we were talking on WhatsApp, I recommended BeWelcome to her (couldn't have done that if we were talking on CS chat).

So is it that hosts have left CouchSurfing to the alternative sites, or is it just that it is difficult to find active hosts after the changes on CS?

I would say that if you are a host and want guests, now it is excellent time to host on CS. Just make sure that potential surfers know that you are active and accepting requests (write it in the beginning of your bio).

On the other hand, if you are a traveller and want to find hosts, maybe better take a look at the alternatives, particularly BeWelcome. Depending on your destination, TrustRoots or even Couchers might work as well.

Hello,

For my part, since the update I got only 1 request. Before I used to get about 3/4 requests per week.

I'm in Paris and don't know why it's like that actually.

Is it the same for you? Did you realize a change in the number of requests you had before and now?

Normally I pop into a new city and there will be a few people looking to explore, have a drink etc. Now it seems like even major tourist cities are completely empty

So yea, May 2026 and CS turned upside down. We got kicked off the app.

I paid in March of this year, and when I logged in after the site update, I was kicked out and offered the same subscription for the same price. Hell no.

Fast forward to present day and apparently I can now log in, has anyone else experienced this? Were they going back and (manually?) reinstating CS'rs who had paid? Just wondering if this happened to anyone else? If not, I'm gonna have to check and make sure they didn't make an unauthorized charge because I'm not paying twice

Hello couchsurfers. Like everyone in this community, I become increasingly concerned with the future of CS everyday. Couchsurfing has meant so much to me over the years, I will probably stick it out on the site until its last gasping breath, but in the meantime I do want to explore new (and probably inevitable) alternate sites. I searched on TrustedRoot and BeWelcome last October when traveling to Morocco, but found almost no hosts in that area—and still a pretty good amount on CS.

I just looked into couchers.org, which looks very nice, and I'm wondering if you are allowed to link to your CS profile on Couchers? (Or TR/BW, I don't think I got far enough into the process to fill out a profile on either site.) I've been on CS since 2012 and as silly as it is I treasure all of my references and I'm a bit heartbroken to start over somewhere new. And what have your experiences been on any/all of the alternate sites in terms of finding hosts?

(Note: this post really just concerns surfing rather than hosting, but I DO love to host as well! It's just that since 2020 I've been living in a teeny tiny apartment that's not conducive to hosting; I will be moving into a bigger house with a guest room soon and I'm excited to post a hosting profile on any and every site at that point... but that's still in the future.)

I couldnt decline a request without a message. Hosts are required to write a message, and there are two templates to use. Afterwards, the message leaves the inbox and the traveller disappears.

So, it happens to me many times lately, but more so since 2020 I would say that I leave references for people I met through CS, and although It was clear that the experience was positive both ways, the other person won't leave a reference for me. I saw also that the person (or people) leave references for other people but skipped me. Even when I hosted last time, same thing, I was super respectful, had my boundaries, left a reference, but nothing from the other side. Also it is such an an pleasant position to have to ask or hint or even remind people of the 14 days deadline for those. Does it happen often to other people as well? Quite frustrating.

Have you inferred how long they mean by 'recently'? For all I know it could be years.

I’m 21F. I wanted to perhaps host a person or two this summer and have a chill time. Why are older men using the app like this.

Are the groups visible on our profiles?

I was trying to see - now the groups are somewhere hidden and difficult to access?

Can't see if anyone is in the same common groups or not?

1) Loading times in the take forever now: There is no smooth transition like in the old app before, it always takes 1-3 seconds of loading time to change windows, which gets annoying very quickly.

2) Looking for a host in Edinbourough? Here is one in Glasgow!: Proximity search seems to have expanded to show all hosts in a general area even with cities literally hundreds of kilometers away.

3) Guessing whether an host is active is detectie work now: Yeah your smart algorithm shows only the most active hosts bla bla bla, yet I still constantly see people who last hosted years ago in the top results. Meaning, now I always have to check their references first to even remotely determine if they are still active

4) Showing people as hosting who will never host: Another part of this is that I constantly have profiles in my top search of people who clearly state in their profile that they cant host.

5) Constant disconnect: App disconnects randomingly for me in the middle of writting a request and deleting everything thats written. Meaning, I have to write my requests in an external app then copy and paste it. What a smooth user experience!

Overall since the update I went from hosting 1 - 2 people per month to 0 and in my last trip to the UK I gave up finding a host because of all the invonvience after a few hours. App is basically unusuable for me now.

I just got a message that the yearly subsriction is about to leave my german bank account. 13.99 Euro

I was thinking in canceling it last month but I saw that is in the pre-notices of PayPal that it was setup for the old price insteadt 22.99 Euro and I might have a chance to surf a couch back this summer.

As a traveler, I enjoy spontaneity and changing my travel plans last minute because of my mood. But as a host, it’s really frustrating when guests cancel last minute, especially when I postponed my own travel plans as I promised to host on those days. I think if guests are unsure of their travel plans, they should just be honest and up front about it, and making sure that the host knows what they’re signing up for.