What kind of a person would open up their home to people they’ve never met before who are traveling from other countries?

Oak Parker Lorie Ranker, for one.

She’s not just letting some stranger off the street into her home. For the last two years, Ranker has been a member of Couch
surfing.org, a worldwide social networking site, where members invite fellow surfers into their homes, and also stay with other members from all over the world.

Ranker learned of the site while checking airline fares online. As someone who likes to travel and meet new people anyway, it piqued her interest. She signed on as a member — or newbie for first-time surfers — in April 2008. The mother of two has since hosted about 50 people and has couch-surfed in Amsterdam, Munich and Paris, to name a few places.

"It was mostly for the purposes of international travel; not at all for this social network that it created for me here," Ranker said of joining.

Surf’s up: Oak Parker Lorie Ranker (top center, with her two sons in Paris) is a Chicago-area organizer for Couchsurfing.org. Along with traveling and meeting new friends abroad, she hosts get-togethers locally with surfers near and far, as her photo collection shows.
Photos courtesy LORIE RANKER

 

 

Surfers can stay overnight, days, weeks and, in some cases, a couple of months if all parties are in agreement. Profiles on the site are like those on MySpace and Facebook.

The Web site began in 2004 and currently boasts more than 2 million members from more than 230 countries. The site’s founder, a Bostonian named Casey Fenton, created the Couch Surfing Project a year earlier, inspired by a trip he took overseas in 1999.

Rather than stay at a hostel during his visit to Iceland, he e-mailed more than 1,000 University of Iceland students to ask for room and board, according to Fenton’s description on the site.

He ended up with 50 responses and was able to find a place to stay. Upon returning to the states, Fenton began brainstorming about how others could meet new people from various parts of the world in a similar way.

That’s really the purpose of the site’s "community," explained Ranker — to experience different people from different cultures.

Ranker, a massage therapist, has become the main organizer for the Chicago-area couch surfers. She hosts parties and get-togethers at her Oak Park home and places around Chicago. Her group has had several beach parties, including one last Saturday at Foster Avenue beach on Chicago’s North Side. Ranker also travels with her two boys, Kyle, 10, and 7-year-old Holden. They were in Paris just last year.

And as for actually sleeping on someone’s couch, surfers can, but hosts usually have a spare bedroom visitors use. It all depends on how many people are visiting and how much space a host has. Last summer for Chicago’s Lollapalooza concert, Ranker had eight people over, all camped out in tents in her backyard. She’s hosting 10 surfers for this year’s concert.

But members aren’t required to offer up their couches or rooms. According to the site, people can host a coffee with guests or meet them at designated places. Parties thrown by local groups are one way to meet and greet outside of someone’s home.

When Ranker first joined, the reaction from some people was, "Wow, that’s a really good way to get yourself killed," she recalled.

Ranker insists that safety isn’t overlooked by members, but said she’s not had any bad experiences, either hosting or traveling. The community also watches out for one another, she noted. The site maintains that couch surfing is a safer way to meet people than one might think. Ranker agrees.

"My feeling is it’s much easier than going camping. Camping is more scary to me, and I like camping," she said. "I mean, I think about sitting in a campsite in a tent that could be slashed open, with a bunch of strangers drinking beer two sites over — how can that be any safer? But people do that all the time."

Members provide references and verifications of who they are, a requirement of the site and community. Members are also required to confirm their location. One of the most important verifications is the site’s vouching system, where trusted surfers give approval about someone to fellow members. But those trusted surfers must have been vouched for by three other members. According to the site, members have to know one another in the real world.

Ranker set up her profile and verified who she was when she joined, but had no one to vouch for her until she started meeting other members. She eventually built up three vouchers in a few months, and now has more than 20.

In 2009, Ranker joined the local Chicago group and soon became an organizer. She enthusiastically accepts her role as mother hen of her Chicago group.

"It’s turned into my entire social network. It’s fantastic," she said. "I threw myself into it and never really stepped back. People have their moments of really wanting to do a lot of stuff and then they don’t want to do it. For me, it’s kind of my calling. I really, really enjoy it."

Ranker has encouraged others to join the site. Kathy Osler, whom Ranker has known for years, signed up in January. Osler, a mom and Oak Park resident, didn’t know what to make of it at first.

"I thought, ‘What’s this?’ I thought it was weird, but not scary," she said.

Osler, a licensed counselor, has since hosted four visitors and will do some couch surfing next month in Minnesota and this fall or early spring overseas. She said she’s had no bad experiences with it.

"I went to some events organized by Chicago members. When I first joined, I didn’t agree to do anything. Then I hosted a coffee," Osler recalled. "I’ve met people from all over the world. I like the interactions and random meetings, and it’s a good way to make friends."

Concerning safety, Osler adds, "You do rely on the community. We really have to look out for each other. We police ourselves, and I think the community does a good job of that."

The Couch Surfing Project is a nonprofit organization. What funding it does receive is donated by members. And there’s no exchange of money between members. Ranker said there are no expectations for hosts to feed their guests. Visitors usually cook their own food, sometimes meals from their home country that they share with their hosts.

Couch surfers come from all walks of life, Osler noted. She said she’s met various professionals — doctors, educators, and recently hosted a physicist who was visiting Chicago for a conference.

Ranker said there are plenty of parties and events for members to attend. But visitors, Osler noted, are usually on the go when they’re visiting a city and/or country. Couch surfing is also one way to save money from staying somewhere expensive, Osler adds. But she and Ranker stress that opening one’s home is about sharing cultural experiences, not just offering "free lodging."

"That’s the wrong idea going into it, completely," Ranker said. "Those are the people I don’t want staying in my house. The idea is that you actually want to get to know what they’re about."

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