While Couch Surfing (the system itself, not the website) got a friendly write-up in The New Yorker, their writer was lucky and fooled at the same time. My one actual surfer -- I'm not looking for a place to stay myself -- was a fraud, using a friend's name. I might have been raped and murdered, and not necessarily in that order. Soon after, two women called from the road (I-40) and announced that they were one their way. No you're not! Horrible experience. I asked them to remove my name, but now I see it is linked with CS when I Google myself. You've been warned!