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Couchsurfing vs Hospitality Club vs Staydu vs Global Freeloaders – what’s the best hospitality exchange site?

How to find free accommodation online - Couchsurfing, Hospitality Club, Staydu, Global Freeloaders

How to find free accommodation online - Couchsurfing, Hospitality Club, Staydu, Global Freeloaders

Before people rented out their spare rooms and couches through Airbnb, they offered them up for free through a number of other websites. And some still do! Here’s what I’ve experienced with a few of the hospitality exchange sites out there (I’m not counting sites like WWOOF or HelpX where you work in exchange for board here – just those that offer some sort of lodging for free).

Staydu

I’m not a big fan of Staydu, and not just because I get random friend requests from strangers a lot.

PROS

Variety of accommodation options
Staydu isn’t a straight Couchsurfing clone. There are three aspects to it. You can search for places to crash for free, places to volunteer, and places to stay for a fee.

CONS

Small community
There isn’t a large user database, and in the sharing economy, there’s strength in numbers. I’ve sent out a couple of requests through it, but never heard back.

Not user-friendly
Unlike Couchsurfing, you can’t filter for hosts by, say, the ability to host two travellers. You’ve got to click into individual profiles to see what limitations they’ve set for hosting.

Initial barriers
You can pay for membership privileges … or do activities to get points by participating in the community, e.g. writing blog posts or commenting in the forums.

Global Freeloaders

Unlike most other hospitality exchange sites, Global Freeloaders is pretty upfront, as the name suggests. There’s no grand vision here about a cultural exchange and enriching experiences – just finding a place to crash. I admire the mercenary take, but as a result, the response rate is pretty abysmal.

PROS
Time saver
Unlike other hospitality exchange sites, you don’t pick out individual hosts and write personal messages to them. Rather, you blast out a mass request to multiple recipients. It saves time, but the impersonal approach obviously doesn’t yield the same kind of response.

CONS

Terrible site
The site is very old, and it’s an eyesore. The layout is totally borked; search results come up sprawled across the screen, forcing you to scroll sideways.

Inactive community
Following on from my last point, it seems very few members are actually still active. I think I received two (negative) replies in total through Global Freeloaders, and one of them expressed surprise that his profile was still coming up as available to host.

Hospitality Club

We’ve been more successful with Hospitality Club, which is surprising, as it’s another very old site that’s dying out a bit. First, a host reached out to me out of the blue (as a brand new member, no less!) to offer us accommodation in Munich. Then when I sent out a few requests to Berlin hosts, I heard back from one member, who was going to be out of town, but referred me to her boyfriend, who ended up hosting us in their apartment. The response rate from hosts is probably comparable to Couchsurfing in my experience.

PROS
Engaged community
As an established site, I get the impression Hospitality Club has a pretty engaged community. Loads of NYC Sublets, which comes at no surprise. Active hosts seem genuinely interested in connecting and conversing, as was the case with both our hosts.

CONS

Ugly site
It’s hideous. Seriously. Stuck in a 90s time warp. And while the search function is more powerful than Staydu’s, it’s still not as user-friendly as Couchsurfing.

Couchsurfing

Perhaps the mother of all hospitality exchange sites right now, Couchsurfing has exploded into a total behemoth in the past few years, thanks to a lot of recent publicity. As a result, it’s getting tough to find hosts. In my experience, you’d be lucky to get any response from half of the requests you send. Heck, surprisingly, even newbies don’t seem to bother replying half the time (tip: they’re often good to target as they’re eager to get started using Couchsurfing and to build up feedback). I’ve had a few hosts reach out to me with invitations to stay after seeing my itinerary – you can post details of upcoming trips and dates that you’ll be in a particular city – but none have worked out, as I’d either already got accommodation sorted by then, or the hosts bailed on me after realising I was not a single female traveller. Read into that what you will.

PROS
Big community
With a membership of over 5 million, you’ve got the best odds of finding a host.

User-friendly
Couchsurfing occasionally groans under the pressure, and its backend is being rebuilt, but by and large it works smoothly. You can filter your search for hosts by a number of criteria and search by map. And it’s just so darn purty.

More than couches
Couchsurfing is about much more than finding free places to stay. Events are a big part of Couchsurfing, and in big cities, there are meetups every night to suit all types of people. You can also use Couchsurfing to find people to share rides with (like we did in Iceland) and ask for travel advice on the local city pages

CONS
Losing its way
A common complaint about Couchsurfing is that it’s just gotten too big. That the community has changed and is full of freeloaders. It defintely feels like there are too many surfers these days and not enough hosts. (It bugs me when bloggers and mainstream media tout Couchsurfing just as a free way to travel; if people keep taking and taking, soon there’ll be nothing left. It’s an exchange – or at least, that’s the original idea.)

In conclusion

Staying with hosts can be a priceless experience, but it’s not an easy path to take. It can be hard not to take rejection personally. When hosts have fully fleshed out profiles, I put in a lot of effort to find common ground and personalise requests, and often get regretful ‘no’s that thank me for writing a thoughtful message. There’s a lot of work involved – and no guarantee of a payoff.

Have you used any of these couch surfing sites yourself? Or others like BeWelcome or Servas?

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8 thoughts on “Couchsurfing vs Hospitality Club vs Staydu vs Global Freeloaders – what’s the best hospitality exchange site?

  • Reply Pauline @ Reach Financial Independence October 3, 2013 at 10:26

    I used HC a lot 10 or so years ago. Haven’t logged in in ages, but I hear it is pretty active in Eastern Europe and Germany.
    CS is more user friendly but like you say it is losing its real purpose and hosts are overwhelmed with requests of people just wanting a free bed. In Guatemala I used to host back in 2004 and didn’t get why people would go through all the trouble just to save $5 on a room. Those I wouldn’t host under any circumstance. Now I am very picky and am enjoying it once more.

  • Reply First Gen American October 9, 2013 at 05:29

    ALright, I’m going to sound really old here, but “back when I was backpacking 20 years ago”, there were no internet sites like these. The free accommodation I utilized for years was through personal networking. I either knew people in different countries or had friends/family who did. People are more willing to open their homes up to you in the first place if they know you’re a friend of a friend or friend of the family. Since I have 2 kids in tow, this is not really an option for me anymore.

    • Reply Daniel Slater October 22, 2016 at 13:37

      Interestingly I just created a site based on this exact premise! I feel like none of the above options are too inspiring so I’m currently growing clubsofa.org. I know I’m late to the party but if you see this check it out and sign up!

  • Reply Couchsurfing vs Hospitality Club vs Staydu vs Global Freeloaders: ¿Cuál es el mejor sitio de alojamiento solidario? | blog sindinero.org February 18, 2014 at 02:59

    […] traducido como buenamente he podido (con la guía del imperfecto google translate) esta comparativa de los servicios web de alojamiento solidario (o intercambio de alojamiento) más conocidos. Creo que el resultado de la traducción es […]

  • Reply Milly Day February 19, 2014 at 04:17

    I had never even heard of those other websites! Couchsurfing is the only one I know, and I think it’s great but I agree with what you say about people using it as a way to ‘travel for free’ which isn’t the idea at all. I always make an effort to cook, help clean etc and buy the host wine or a gift at the end.

    • Reply Janet March 7, 2016 at 07:41

      That’s great that you make the “effort to cook, etc….. but isn’t the point made previously, that many people use Couch Surfing, without offering to host travelers?

  • Reply Bob R. December 22, 2015 at 04:49

    I have just finished reading your reviews of the primary travel sites; you have done an excellent job of it. I am not really looking for free lodging, just inexpensive lodging. When traveling to Canada, my wife and I have used B&B’s extensively. We ‘d like to take a trip to Switzerland & Germany, and wonder if B&B’s are a good option there.
    We’re up in years, so we think that for the most part, the sites you mention probably aren’t suitable for us, with the possible exception of HC.

    As you sound so knowledgable, thought you might give us a bit of advice. Thanks.

  • Reply Ylanda November 25, 2017 at 21:40

    I use Couchsurfing, I’ve been hosted and hosted a person, but haven’t had the opportunity to host more people because people messed me about.

    The comment about CS losing it’s way it very much true. Admittedly, I’ve been on the site for about a year, but in the short time I’ve had a number a number of guys who think it’s a dating site. It’s a shame because I’ve met some lovely people through the site.

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