Rock Bands Go CouchSurfing: ‘It Beats Sleeping in a Van’
Travel Blog • Eva Holland • 12.30.08 | 12:15 PM ET
Photo by 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]
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Terry Ward 12.30.08 | 5:02 PM ET
Couch surfing rules! If I had a big enough place, I would love to host a traveling band. I think the more people involved, the better, really. Anyway, it’s up the individual to weed through profiles and figure out who you want to stay with, or who you’d like to stay with you. For a traveler and a writer, the site, as a resource, can’t be beat.
Craig 01.03.09 | 9:33 PM ET
Nice find, Eva. I’m a couchsurfing fan and beginning to use it more and more. As long as the couchsurfing hosts are expecting the late night post-gig arrivals I can’t imagine any problems.
Brita Hansen 01.21.09 | 10:46 AM ET
Hey! This website is dedicated to just this very thing! Check it out: http://www.betterthanthevan.com