From couch to couch

Imagine offering your couch to a complete stranger for the night, someone who could be visiting your city from anywhere in the world.

To people known as couch-surfers, this doesn’t sound crazy.

In Columbia, about 50 people belong to the Web site CouchSurfing.com, a free site that allows users to search for hosts all over the world. A couch-surfer is a visitor who sleeps on a host’s couch as an alternative to staying in a hotel. The host is generally a friendly stranger interested in meeting new people.

“I found it to be the most fascinating way to get to know people,” said Lee, 29, a Columbia resident who said he did not want to give his last name because his parents might be concerned.

While working as a member of the Peace Corps in Morocco, Lee hosted a couch-surfing couple from Slovenia and a French journalist.

“The Slovenes brought me a bottle of homemade plum brandy, which we drank together on my roof,” he said.

The French journalist who stayed with Lee brought coin purses from his recent trip to Thailand and passed them out as gifts.

Lee suggested that future couch-surfers bring a token of appreciation with them for their host during their stay.

“People like gifts,” Lee said. “Especially things from far away, no matter how small or insignificant.”

Not only has Lee hosted visitors, but he too is a couch-surfer. A few years ago, Lee visited and couch-surfed in Germany. Lee said he enjoyed his time in Germany and also liked the German cuisine. “For breakfast, I had zucchini soup covered with yeast flakes,” he said. “It was delicious.”

Even though Lee was vacationing, his host had to continue her daily life. “She went to work actually,” he said. “So I hung out with her roommate who took me and their dog for a walk near the park.”

This outing gave Lee a chance to bond with a new friend and ask questions about German culture.

Right now, Lee is looking for a job in Washington, D.C., and although he is staying with friends, not couch-surfers, he is touring the city with people he met on CouchSurfing.com.

“I don’t like to just travel to places if I don’t know anybody there,” Lee said. “The first thing to do is to get to know people, but that’s tough. (The) CouchSurfing (Web site) makes that really easy.”

The site is open to anyone 18 or older who has a personal e-mail address. Half of CouchSurfing.com’s users are between 18 and 25, the site says.

After signing up, users create a profile, list their couch as an option for accommodation and search for potential hosts.

Cynthia Woodcock, 38, a nurse practitioner from Columbia, hosted her first couch-surfer last month. Cesar Becerra, 34, stayed with her for a night during his stay in Columbia. The two new couch-surfing friends got along well.

“On Friday Cesar made a big meal for us and I invited, like, six people over,” Woodcock said.

During his stay in Columbia, Becerra said he enjoyed touring downtown and visiting the Ragtag Cinema, Lakota Coffee Co. and the Peace Nook. “I’m from big-city Miami, so this is a cool little town,” he said.

Becerra’s goal is to walk across the country and eventually the world. CouchSurfing.com is a tool to help him do that.

His host, Woodcock, is now visiting Africa. She said CouchSurfing.com helped her connect with people in Tanzania and do research about the country. During her research, a fellow couch-surfer volunteered to pick Woodcock up from the airport.

“It’s such a great way to get past that superficial shell that is out there and really get into the meat of things,” she said.

Some members use the site to get tourism information before they travel, rather than as a way to find accommodations during a trip.

Columbia resident Mike Rader, 20, has been a member of the site for about two years and said he uses the site to get tips on visiting new places.

“I mainly use the site as a way to directly talk to some locals of a place that I’m going to be visiting,” he said. “I’m able to ask people my own age where the good bars are, where I should eat and what I should do, all months before I even go there.”

Rader has not yet used the site to couch-surf, but it is something he wants to try.

“Hopefully, someday, I will go surfing and meet all of these people that I talk to,” he said.

“CouchSurfing is designed for those who are generally comfortable with new people and can trust their instincts,” said Abraham Haim in an e-mail from Israel, where the Columbia resident was traveling the country by day and sleeping on couches by night.

“A friend told me about it just a couple weeks before I took off on this trip,” Haim said about his first real couch-surfing experience.

According to CouchSurfing.com, the project “creates a better world” by encouraging its members to open up their homes, hearts and lives to fellow couch-surfers.

“In the world today, and especially in the United States, there’s a culture of fear,” Haim said. “One of the goals of couch-surfing is to overcome that and build more of a culture of trust and mutual aid.”