CS is one of the bets thing I’ve found in my life :)

I had 5 or 6 incredible experiences in Italy with guys who introduced me to their friends, family and shown me private areas and good places to eat real local food ! I have so many good memories thanks to CS !
Once I had a very negative experience with a crazy girl who lied about herself, her expectation, yelled at me, drunk and threw up, did not thanks me at all for what I did (tried to drive her around and so on) but … I left a neg one even if she gave me one (it hurts and is really negative on my profile unfortunately :( ) but at least I am honest toward the community, I warned everybody (although she has created a new profile :( ) …

CS is great, it’s amazing, it’s one of those things that allow you to answer to sentences like : “nowadays people are not generous/nice/open-minded”

By the way I also enjoyed reading all those comments wrote by nice travelers :)

Thanks to you Charlie and thanks to everybody !

LONGUE VIE A CS ;D

Hi Niels,

I usually only send out a couple of requests at a time and generally try not to leave it to right at the last minute so there’s time to chat with people by message an email beforehand. I’ve not had this situation happen before but if it did I would just politely say that someone else had gotten back to me but that I’d love to meet them for a drink one evening, or something along those lines :)

Hope that helps!

I was wondering what people think about sending out several requests at once?
Tonight I sent a couple of requests. And if I get more than one positive feedback, I’d feel embarrassed having to say: “never mind, I found something else”. Or is it acceptable to try more hosts to make sure you find something on short notice? Above you write hostS and so does CS.
Any thoughts on this?

Regards

Niels

Hey Charlie,
I took your advice and ended up getting a few hosts in a couple days. I spent less time writing and more time looking for people that really struck me. My trip is down the east coast and then around the midwest. Not too far away, but any type of travel seems to bring you together with some incredible people. The only spot I am still hammering down is D.C.

Thanks for the advice.
Neal

I usually send out about 10 to specific people that I would really like to stay with and in general usually get one or two replies. I also keeps things fairly sweet. I don’t like to over do it as I’m sure people have other things to do than read an essay from me haha! Usually a couple of sentences introducing ourselves, including why we particularly would like to stay with them. And then another line about dates.

In what areas are you sending out requests? To places in Europe? I also find that responses vary country to country. We had a lot of success in Europe and in Taiwan, but very little in Central America – it’s just not a popular thing here (not yet, anyway). Where will your 3 week trip be to? Enjoy! And good luck with finding hosts! :)

I’ve still to get the ‘axe murderer’ that many of my friends warn me about and most of my experiences have been really positive. I did have a couple of ‘why am I hosting these people’ moments too – a couple of Greek girls – best friends from school – who were meeting up after about 12 months apart. They were so in their own bubble, conversation had to be dragged out of them and, in spite of my profile stating that as I work from home and the couch is in my ‘office’, guests shouldn’t be around after 10:30 on weekdays, they seemed to think that staying in bed till one or two was what I meant. I endured with them till their departure and promptly put some filters into my profile sorting out the great requests from the cut and paste.

I did have a guest who came for 2 days and stayed for 2 weeks too – I hope to marry her next year.

Sean

Hi Yara – it’s nice to hear from you :) That sounds super awesome!

I won’t be publishing until next week, I’m just sorting through the collaborative submissions this week, so please email me your story anyway! I would love to hear it :)

What a shame I’m not on time for the collaborative guest post :(