The nights she spent at her hosts' homes were Chang's first encounters with them. Chang found her hosts through a website called Couchsurfing.org, which connects travelers looking for a free place to ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Travel costs continue to rise, and savvy globetrotters are increasingly turning to alternative accommodation options that save ...

You are now getting your Couchsurfing requests accepted, and if you are a newbie to Couchsurfing, this will most likely prove to be simultaneously exciting and terrifying! The next step for you is to ...

Since its inception in 2004, Couchsurfing has garnered a lot of attention for a simple idea: strangers offering couches or beds to travelers, at no cost for lodging. At its best, it is a great way to ...

For some, renting out their home on Airbnb is a helpful, or even necessary, secondary income — especially in San Francisco, where eye-popping rents and mortgages are the norm. Sometimes, though, it ...

I was standing on a dark London street corner at night, waiting for someone I’d never met. Dorothy rounded the corner in a Vanagon with the steering column on the “wrong” side. We’d talked via e-mail ...

Three years before you could rent your fancy 5th Ave Manhattan apartment or luxury seaside mansion in Thailand on Airbnb, travel social network CouchSurfing was *the *place to fill up your sofa or ...