You showed up. A lot of you. More than we expected, honestly.
And with that came feedback. Some of it glowing. Some of it not. All of it is useful.
We’ve spent the last month listening and building. This is what that looks like.
The Growing Pains
We knew this update would come with some bumps. We didn’t know everywhere they would show-up. Members ran into trouble logging in. Members who originally signed up with one email address saw their past contributions get tied to a different email address after logging in through one of the new login options. Some references were missing. We heard all of your feedback.
So we got to work. Across login, subscriptions, references, and general platform performance. We have been shipping fixes continuously. The experience is a lot smoother than it was on day one. And there is still more on the way..
One of the reasons we rebuilt the platform from the ground-up was exactly for this reason: Issues that used to take months to fix can now take days. Sometimes hours. You’re seeing that in real time.
What’s New
Beyond the bug fixes, here are three things that are live or landing very soon.
Member Events: Available now.
Our goal has always been to make it easier for the Couchsurfing community to connect with one another. We’ve met some great friends at Couchsurfing events and have had some of the best times. Even the times we don’t remember all that well.
Member events are now easier to spot on the map, tagged to stand out in lists, and simple to filter for so that you don’t miss them. Curated events are a great way to find things to do with others, but community-hosted events should always be prioritized. We’ll keep working to make this better.
Smarter Search: Available now.
Finding the right host takes work, and we want to make it easier to connect with members. More messages that get responses. Less sending into the void.
- Recently Active filter – Find members who are active on the platform. There is also a “Recently Active” tag to help you spot hosts even when you are not filtering.
- References filter – Filter for members who have references from the community, so you can connect with more confidence.
- Travelers – We’ve also sorted travelers by their trip dates (yeah, we couldn’t believe we missed that either 🤦🏻♂️).
- We also are constantly making changes to our search algorithm to help you find the right host.
Hosting Availability: Coming early next week.
Take pauses from hosting and you won’t show when people are searching for hosts.
Thank you for this feedback. Sincerely, every report filed, every piece of feedback sent, every forum post written – it all went somewhere. It went into this update. And it’s going into the next one.
This community has always been built by the people in it. Keep it coming:
Couchsurfing Feedback Form
Couchsurfing Bug Report Form
There are more improvements and new features coming. Make sure you’re on the latest version of the app to see everything that’s new. Check your app store to ensure you have the most recent version.
See you out there,
The Couchsurfing Team