One of the biggest expenses travelers face is accommodations. Without friends and family scattered about in vacation-worthy destinations, you are almost guaranteed to spend a large portion of your budget on lodging. However, there is a service that provides you with a unique opportunity to not only find shelter free, but also possibly make some friendships in the process. Couchsurfing.org is a website allowing users to create profiles and using them advertise a place to stay or a need for a place to stay. From here, users interact with each other finding matches across the world.
Create your profile. Make sure to include as much information about yourself as possible. Include many pictures as well. The more information you share at this very early stage, the better. Most users do not feel comfortable sharing their home or their time with complete strangers and the more you provide about yourself, the more they feel they know you.
Get involved with the Couchsurfing community. It is oftentimes difficult to find someone willing to house you at first. Luckily, Couchsurfing offers many different opportunities to meet and get to know members of the community. Browse through the website's forums and look for cookouts, meet-ups, bar nights and any other social events. Once you have started to ease yourself into the community people will hopefully begin to post positive references on your profile.
Search for a couch to surf. Click on the Surf/Host tab at the top of the website. From there go to CouchSearch. Here you will find an in-depth search engine of all the CouchSurfing profiles, with option for basic and advanced searches. Try to find someone with not only a couch available, but also who seems like a person you would not mind spending time with. This includes being weary of their references. Under their profile, you will see many different user comments posted. Remember that you are sharing this person's home.
Contact as many people as possible that meet the criteria you are seeking. Many people have other obligations or even other couch surfers staying at their place, so do not expect to get a positive response your first try. Also, give an adequate amount of time before your arrival. Two weeks is a good standard.
Make arrival arrangements with whoever chooses to have you. You will most likely need to figure out transportation to and from the person's house, if you are not driving yourself.
