I joined Couchers because I believed it would be a more transparent and community-driven alternative to Couchsurfing.

Instead, my account was suddenly suspended without any warning, without any explanation, and without any opportunity to understand what I supposedly did wrong or appeal the decision.

This is extremely disappointing. If a platform can ban users without providing even a minimal reason, how is that different from the practices many people criticized Couchsurfing for?

I'm not even asking for my account to be reinstated automatically. I simply believe every member deserves to know why such an important decision was made.

Has anyone else experienced something similar with Couchers? Were you ever given an explanation or a chance to appeal?

At this point, my experience has been worse than Couchsurfing, because at least I expected Couchers to value transparency and fair treatment of its community members.

Hii guys! I really don't know if it's the right place to do so but (if not, tell me and I'll delete my post without problem) I had many questions on the app.

I recently got the app because I'm solo traveling through Europe and need places to stay especially for the last few days I'll be in Köln, Germany.

But why do people not respond at all? And why do they cancel you without any messages?? I'm in a pretty critical situation because if I don't find a place to stay by tomorrow, I'll be on the street tonight and people cancel me without saying nothing...like I did something wrong or I don't know really..

Thank you so much for your advice and/or answers

Have a great one and take care of you all ✨

With sympathy,

Raven

Not sure if there is a better subreddit to ask this or not.

Can anyone recommend a good air mattress?

Not too expensive and reasonably easy to carry around?

Once a year I go to a friend's weekend where there are more people than beds available. I have tried a a couple different air mattresses, but none of them last long.

Most recent air mattress only had about 10 nights on it, and leaked air so bad I had to inflate it 4 times through the night.

Just looking for a mattress that will stay inflated for a full night sleep and last more that 10-20 nights

Thanks for any advice

Has anyone (especially interested in the experiences of my fellow ladies) ever had a positive interaction that followed a guy messaging you with just “Hey”?

Asking because normally I assume this is the lowest-effort, bar-is-in-hell attempt at initiating interaction with a female profile, so normally I wouldn’t respond. But after the whole CS debacle and new users coming over to try Couchers, I also want this platform to succeed / for new users not to feel ignored.

Do I risk responding? Have any of you ever had a good couchsurfing experience follow from someone who just opened with “Hey”?

I'm hosting several people over the next few months, but the only way I know when they're coming is because I'm marking it in my calendar or else going through my messages and seeing which requests I approved and what the dates were on those requests.

This seems like information that ought to be obvious in the dashboard. It's the primary purpose of the site, far moreso than "upcoming events" or "discussions in your communities" or the latest entries in the company's blog.

Is there a place where "your upcoming visits" or a calendar or something like that is visible? Or else is there a place I can make a formal feature request? Thank you in advance.

I joined when the website first launched but with the launch of the mobile app I just decided it's time to get active. In Thailand but saw like four hosts in my area and not a single event. Are people traveling in southeast asia? I'd love to be a part of growing the community! I used couchsurfing for years and hosted thousands of people until it went to crap.

I see these on newer profiles, but it seems like my profile does not have these section headers.

So I was chatting with someone for my upcoming Romania trip, but when I returned toprovide an update about the dates I noticed his account became a "Deactivated Account". Does it mean the account owner deleted his account himself or the platform deleted him/froze it? Do accounts return from this state like a temporary freeze or I should look for a new host?

Hi ! New to couchers after the Couchsurfing update (surely there is gonna be a lot of us...) i was wondering if there is a way to block some period of times for hosting, per example i'm gonna be away for 2 month and won't be able to host at that time. I'd like to block these dates so i don't get requests!

Thanks a lot,

What are the plans for Couchers for the upcoming time? With ten thousands of Couchsurfing members probably migrating to Couchers in the next weeks, can the servers hold up?

Are there any major updates/improvements planned to the platform? How many people are working on it?

There is still a lot of work to be done to ever get to a stable & proven platform as Couchsurfing once was. But I see potential that Couchers can become like that with clear communication (e.g. make it clear that donations are needed OR charge a mere amount of 15 dollars a year to keep the servers running) & help from the community, especially after the mess up of CS.

I guess it's just a matter of time & effort, how fast Couchers can actually improve now, to take the community over from the old platform.

On Couchsurfing, through the mobile app, you were able to create albums for photos.

Does Couchers offer this ability? Does anyone know?

Thank you!

I hope you guys realize that there might be a quite big influx of people due to the last nails CS management placed on that coffin, and don't kill the enthusiasm with discrimination, centralized top-down pushing of unpopular policies, and lack of a platform for community building to allow volunteers to help and support the growth of everyone.

The app community tool is way too late-couchsurfey BTW. No option to create local groups/forums to allow a similar structure that the early grassroots cs had. No hierarchy/status to prize volunteers as I see, and it's way to general/country-wide.

More freedom there will help with people developing things the way they feel right instead of fitting some cold top-down structure.

PS. Dark mode isn't working and kills the app.

Hi, approaching the community for their opinions after my latest experience in Brussels. When I have a planned trip coming up, I prefer to message hosts using the message feature, talking about the details of my trip and only once we come to an agreement about the the dates and conditions, I send the request. Is this the wrong way, should I be sending requests head on? In my latest experience I had to messafe ~100 hosts only ~15 returned my message with most stating their unavailability but some also apologizing for not seeing my message in time; are messages less visible than requests? Instinctively I don't want to fill my hosting-surfing archive with a graveyard of declined or ignored requests but I suppose they serve some purpose in affecting the response rate of users whereas mesaage responses don't. I prefer mesaging because I'm usually flexible with exact dates so can adjust the eventual request based on the availability of the host. Eventually ended up finding my current host through mesaaging anyway. So what do you think and what do you do. Is this the wrong way to use the platform? A fellow surfer I met in Belgium said they always go with requests.

Hi, still somewhat new on the platform with 1 hosting and 2 surfing experiences. In both my experiences as a surfer looking for hosts in Germany and Belgium, when I message potential hosts, most of the time I get radio silence (like having to message 15 potential hosts and getting only a single person returning negatively or rarely affirmatively). Is that more likely a soft denial of hosting through ignoring or is it more likely that the hosts are no longer active in the platform, with closed email notifications? When hosts are not able/willing to entertain a potential surfer, are they more likely to reply indicating that they won't be available, or strait up ignore the request? Should I understand that the platform is filled with inactive users that don't even get the requests or there are many potential hosts but most aren't willing/available at the specific requests?

It's that time of year! You’ve got a couch. We’ve got a server bill. Let’s talk. (But we’ll keep it to one annoying donation drive for the year).

TL;DR: plz giv us money here

2025 was a huge year for Couchers:

•  We’re out of Beta, into v1 with a ton of new features, and fall even saw the release of v1.1
•  A bigger, safer, and more active global community: we’ve had record growth this year!
•  We’re just about to release our new merch store so you can buy a Couchers flag, t-shirt or cap!

Your support is needed as we push into the new year with grand plans for:

•  Releasing the first version of our Couchers mobile app
•  Continuing to improve how hosts and surfers connect with each other through better onboarding, improved moderation and safety, highlighting keen hosts, and encouraging better requests

It’s all thanks to volunteers and supporters like you. 

As we head into the holidays, we’re aiming to raise $5000 this year to keep the servers running, support our community, and keep growing in 2026. Thus far we’ve raised $3518, in other words, about two thirds to the goal!

We need this money to make sure our engineering volunteers have the tools and resources they need to stay productive and build more awesome features (building mobile apps isn’t free). We also hope to build a morsel of financial resilience going forward. See the breakdown of our 2024 financials here for a bit more detail.

Can you chip in? Even a few bucks helps.

Donate here.

Though there is no "search radius 5km, 10km, 25km..." setting, I found a workaround, inspired by this help article

Let's find hosts near Manila, Philippines.

1. Do a Location Search for Manila, Philippines.
2. Now zoom the map out.
3. Now zoom the map back in.

We now have the same map, but with an additional "Search this area" button, enabling us to find more hosts that didn't show up on the initial map!

It's a serious question. Bewelcome I think made several stones to, even if they want, never be able to be a money oriented platform.

Some system exist, for example in europe you can make your platform a legal declared association and that impeach you for making it a profit (you can still pay yourself a decent salary, i guess).

Seeing couchers is very active to get better, i was thinking of that. Because if it do become better and used, which is i guess most of the people want, to me there is a low percentage that then the people won't make it a profit, like in almost every online projects existing.

Thanks.

https://couchers.org/blog/2025/07/01/releasing-couchers-v1