A few years ago, a friend of mine went traveling for several months one winter with her 4 year old daughter. As I watched their journey I kept wondering how she was managing for so long on her own while traveling to off the beaten path locations throughout Europe. Turns out, she survived (and thrived) in part by Couchsurfing.
What is Couchsurfing?
Couchsurfing is where you stay with a host family for free. There is a website, couchsurfing.com, where you set up a profile to share with other travelers. Later, this is also where people can provide reviews of you as a host or a guest. In many ways, couchsurfing was the free pre-cursor to Airbnb.