Below is an article published in The Buffalo News on February 24th, 2008.
I did a phone-interview with a reporter about my experience with Couch Surfing and specifically, Couch Surfing (CS) in Buffalo, NY. The article’s main focus was Hilary Whitely whom I met in Buffalo last year on my tour of the East Coast and Canada. Hilary worked at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and we became fast friends after she offered to give me a lift to my accommodation that evening, my CS host Ben. I told Hilary about the CS program and encouraged her to join (I try to work positively for Couch Surfing in this way…to give back the CS community).
After returning to Ben's, I mentioned Hilary and her kindness. Low and behold in the small town that is Buffalo they knew each other....and Ben remembered she was cute. So in the end, Hilary signed up to the program (YAY!) and has become a very active member being interviewed by the media! AND Hilary and Ben are an item! Oh how 'tweet!
THIS IS THE PART WITH ME IN IT:
Cara Bradley, a couch surfer living in Santa Rosa, Calif., admits she was nervous at first at the prospect of traveling as a single woman to stay on a stranger's couch, but she finally did it.
She said the worst experience she had on her lengthy 2007 couch surfing trip, which included a stay with Breault in Buffalo, was a bachelor pad in Montreal that wasn't very clean.
"They're trusting you, so you trust them," said Bradley, 23.
Couch surfers said the site is safe thanks to the security measures in place.
HERE IS THE ENTIRE ARTICLE:
Couch surfing adds a new wrinkle to travel
Online community matches travelers with hosts who provide free lodging, local knowledge
Date: Sunday, February 24, 2008
Section: News
Edition: Final
Page: A1
By Stephen T. Watson - NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Illustration: Derek Gee/Buffalo News
Hilary Whiteley used www.couchsurfing.com to find a place to crash in Budapest, Hungary, last December.
For decades, people have traveled the globe by ship, train and plane.
Now, all they need is a computer and a couch.
Scores of people in the Buffalo area, and hundreds of thousands around the world, have jumped into the latest trend in traveling -- couch surfing.
"It's the only way to travel," Buffalo native Mike Laudico said in an e-mail from Vietnam, where he is currently couch surfing.
Couch surfers use the Web to find people willing to put up a total stranger for a night or a weekend while they are traveling through a new city.The surfers get a free place to stay, sure, but they also get a knowledgeable local guide to fill them in on the best restaurants, cultural attractions and other things to see in town.
"I think it's an idea that a lot of people can get behind, that you can have a couch to crash on anywhere in the world," said Hilary Whiteley, 24, a couch surfer and University at Buffalo graduate student. "It's just a good way to get out and see more of the world."
Hitchhikers, backpackers and people who stay in low-budget hostels are the psychic forefathers of couch surfers.
They tend to be young, unmarried, open-minded adventurers who would never think of taking a cruise or a guided bus tour of a destination. They rarely stay in hotels, either.
With the development of the Internet and computer databases, it's now much easier for them to locate and communicate with their peers around the world.
Buffalonians who do this say they've had good experiences while surfing couches in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia because these Web sites make safety a priority.
They've also met an interesting mix of people while hosting surfers from other cities.
"It's fairly obvious when you start reading profiles that people involved in this are very like-minded, very community-oriented," said Eric Justin Levinson, 24, a couch surfer and UB graduate who moved to Brooklyn this winter.
Couch surfing is a great way to encourage connections across national borders, something the world needs more of these days, according to those who practice this computer travel networking.
And surfers feel like they're part of an international community, with local members of this fraternity bonding over barbecues and potluck dinners.
"This is like having a friend in every city in the world," said Benjamin Breault, 25, a Buffalo resident and student teacher of social studies in the Buffalo Public Schools who is a dedicated couch surfing host.
>How it all got started
The principal founder of www.couchsurfing.com got the idea to create the site after using the Web to find a place to stay on a visit to Iceland.
Casey Fenton didn't have enough money for a hotel, according to his site profile. He then dug up the online directory for the University of Iceland, e-mailed 1,500 students and got dozens of responses.
He thought this was something that could be replicated on a wider scale, so he started the site with a few friends in 2004.
"What appeals to me is the potential for meaningful human connection, which is typically not available when traveling to an area where you don't know anyone," Daniel Hoffer, a founding member of the Couch Surfing Web site, told The News.
On www.couchsurfing.com, users create a profile, describe themselves, put up a photo, say where they live and whether they can host a traveler.
Some users, such as those who live in dorms or at home, say they can't host but are willing to meet visitors for drinks and tell them the best things to do while in town.
Once users have set up a profile, they can search through the pages of other members to find a host in a city they plan to visit.
There are 160 people from Buffalo registered on www.couchsurfing.com, and another 93 members from Buffalo and surrounding communities on www.hospitalityclub.org.
Couch surfers say members have the kind of local information that you can't get out of Fodor's or a travel agent.
"A lot of Americans, they vacation, they don't travel. I differentiate between vacationing and traveling," Breault said. "You're learning something about the world, rather than viewing the world."
>Cultural immersion
Over Christmas, Whiteley spent three days couch surfing in Budapest, Hungary.
Her first day there, she attended a couch surfing event at a bar and met 30 people from a couple of dozen countries who were also surfing in Budapest.
"It was amazing," said Whiteley, who was pulled into couch surfing by her boyfriend, Breault.
Kasia Olszewska, a student at the University of Toronto's Mississauga campus, found out about couch surfing last March after Googling cheap ways to travel.
She surfed in Europe for a couple months last summer.
"It just blew my mind that someone would welcome me into their house in exchange for nothing," said Olszewska, 19, a native of Poland who runs aFacebook couch surfing group.
She said her couch surfing trip was much more enjoyable than an "awful" organized tour she took of Italy the previous year.
"You get immersed in the culture and the language and the way of life," Olszewska said. "It was the best time of my life."
It seems that Laudico, the Buffalo native, won't stop until he's couch surfed the entire planet.
He's stayed in a lobster hatchery in Maine; loft apartments in Montreal; a huge house in Alaska, where he ate elk meatloaf and halibut lasagna; a one-room flat in Ireland; a farmhouse in Italy; and assorted basements, barns, garages and parked recreational vehicles.
"I've been contemplating finding some work to extend my travels, but at the very least I will circumnavigate the globe, returning to Buffalo sometime in the summer," Laudico said.
Laudico and the other Buffalo members say they've hosted some cool out-of-town surfers, most who were on their way to Canada or New York City.
Breault, a member since January 2007, tries to take surfers to places they might not otherwise know about, such as Zoar Valley, Amy's Place restaurant and Nietzsche's bar.
"One weekend in September, I had six people staying with me," the student teacher said.
>The site is rated safe
Cara Bradley, a couch surfer living in Santa Rosa, Calif., admits she was nervous at first at the prospect of traveling as a single woman to stay on a stranger's couch, but she finally did it.
She said the worst experience she had on her lengthy 2007 couch surfing trip, which included a stay with Breault in Buffalo, was a bachelor pad in Montreal that wasn't very clean.
"They're trusting you, so you trust them," said Bradley, 23.
Couch surfers said the site is safe thanks to the security measures in place.
For example, users are encouraged to rate every experience they've had staying with or hosting a fellow user. The references are posted on the members' profiles for all to see.
The site also allows veteran members to vouch for other trusted members, and site administrators can verify the e-mail addresses, mailing addresses and credit card numbers of members.
Hoffer, the founding member, said he's not aware of any attacks by a host on a couch surfer, or vice versa, that have been reported to police.
There's a belief that the Internet isolates people from each other, but couch surfing shows that the Web in fact can help build interpersonal connections, said Alex Halavais, an assistant professor of communication at Quinnipiac University who previously taught at UB.
Web sites such as www.couchsurfing.com and www.ebay.com are able to create networks among people who have never met each other in person, Halavais said.
"It's this neat idea of trust without knowledge. You're trusting the system," he said.
The couch surfers in Buffalo, Ontario and Pennsylvania have become quite close, holding potluck dinners and other social events.
Creating an international sense of community is important, couch surfers said, because Americans need to build connections with their peers in other countries.
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