Rock Bands Go CouchSurfing: ‘It Beats Sleeping in a Van’

Travel Blog  •  Eva Holland  •  12.30.08 | 12:15 PM ET

vw busPhoto by jmv via Flickr (Creative Commons)

It also beats “staying with crazy fans”—and, of course, paying for a motel room every night. So says Spin Magazine in a brief story on the latest CouchSurfing phenomenon: touring bands using the popular nonprofit travel site to line up post-gig digs.

According to Spin, more than 900 bands have joined the site. “We’ve never had any bad couchsurfing.com stays,” said the lead singer of The Shackeltons. “Everyone was so welcoming, and their places were nice and clean.”

There’s been some hand-wringing lately among old-school CouchSurfers, who worry that the site—now approaching 1 million members—is getting too mainstream, too popular for its own good. I’m not sure where this latest trend will take that debate. After all, coverage in the likes of Spin (and Time, and NBC) certainly suggests CouchSurfing has entered mainstream-dom—but on the other hand, if it’s the site of choice for up-and-coming indie rockers, it can’t have lost its “edge” entirely, right?

[Via Budget Travel’s This Just In]