About

Ce este CouchSurfing?

CouchSurfing is an international non-profit network that connects travelers with locals in over 230 countries and territories around the world. Since 2004, members have been using our system to come together for cultural exchange, friendship, and learning experiences. Today, over a million people who might otherwise never meet are able to share hospitality and cultural understanding.

Our mission as an organization is to create inspiring experiences: cross-cultural encounters that are fun, engaging, and illuminating. These experiences take many forms. CouchSurfing's initial focus was on hosting and 'surfing' (staying with a local as a guest in their home). Alongside these core experiences, we now also facilitate a growing array of activities and events.

We have a vision of a world where everyone can explore and create meaningful connections with the people and places they encounter. Each CouchSurfing experience shared by our members brings us closer to that vision.

Cum functionează CouchSurfing?

CouchSurfing members share hospitality with one another. These exchanges are a uniquely rich form of cultural interaction. Hosts have the opportunity to meet people from all over the world without leaving home. 'Surfers,' or travelers, are able to participate in the local life of the places they visit. We also give more people the chance to become travelers, because 'surfing' lowers the financial cost of exploration.

The CouchSurfing community continues to expand its horizons. Members are always finding more ways to connect and learn about each other. Every day, people across the world share coffee, camping trips, meetings, language exchanges, discussions and all sorts of other experiences.

Cum este administrat CouchSurfing?

CouchSurfing is a non-profit organization, funded by the generous donations of our members and run according to our guiding principles. Our overall strategy as an organization is in line with our vision:individual people change the world. It's individual people that are creating real cultural exchange all over the world. Likewise, it's people that create the systems that are needed to support our community.

We direct most of our finances towards cultivating a capable and committed full-time staff, the majority of whom are volunteers. Instead of a cash salary, our staff is provided with their basic needs and the unique and inspiring life experience afforded by our international work/live model.

Ce se mai întâmplă pe CouchSurfing?

In order to make our vision a reality, we need to create a network where people from different walks of life can come together. We are a diverse community of over 1 million members. CouchSurfers come from 62,000 different cities and speak 1,270 unique languages.

We are even more proud of our track record of creating inspiring experiences. Since 2004, 1.25 million successful CouchSurfing stays have been recorded. 1.5 million new friendships have been formed through CS, and nearly 90,000 of those are described as being close friendships. Members have reported 3.2 million positive experiences, which is an incredible 99.6 percent of all CS experiences.

*All figures current as of July 2009. Please check our statistics page for updated numbers.