How to sleep for free and meet the locals when you’re traveling!

Last updated on May 17th, 2026 at 05:43 am

Want to know how to sleep for free when you’re traveling?

Well, there are a few ways:

1. Work for food and board through a scheme like Workaway, helpx, or wwoofing

2. Camp in places where it is free and legal

3. Couch surf

Ok, first up – and I have to say this, I’m not writing this for you to sponge your way around the world!

It’s really for you to get involved with locals and a like-minded community, with a set of values! Before I start, yes this does give you free accommodation, but being a decent person, it would be great if you offer something to your host in exchange. You could cook a meal, teach them some useful English, or other language, buy them a bottle of wine, or a drink at a local bar.  

Here I am focused on No. 3 – couchsurfing! But a little bit about No. 1 Workaway etc first!

Ok with that said, let’s get on with it – this is how to sleep for free when you’re traveling!

Staying for free with Workaway and similar

Workaway, and Woof and Helpx are all sites that enable you to live with a family, or sometimes a community or in a hostel, and work for your food and board. You work 15-20 hours a week and for that you are supposed to receive a room and 3 meals a day for a week.

I love this system. It makes you go to places you would never normally go to – that are not on the tourist map. More importantly it also gives you a real insight into the real daily lives of the locals. You learn so much and see so much you wouldn’t see just travelling through.

For example – I worked on a dragon fruit farm, learned to make lots of sourdough and yoghurt and halloumi on a permaculture farm, stayed in the south of France in a lovely house with a chef and got to see the local village and a cork tree forest – none of which I would have done if I was just travelling through! I highly highly recommend it. I personally use Workaway but there are other options like Woof and Helpx.

If you want to join Workaway, use this link to join – it gives you one month extra for free!

Staying for free with couch surfing

What exactly is couch surfing?

Couch surfing is joining a community of people who travel and who offer a couch, bed or some place to sleep in their homes for free. In return, they may also request to stay with another member of the community when they are traveling. It’s a great give and take and sharing community.

The concept and websites for couch surfing have been around for a while – since 2004 in fact.

In that time, I have couch surfed in all sorts of places (Guam, Australia, Christmas Island gave me some of my best experiences)

I’ve also had couch surfers from all around the globe stay with me and have met many people I wouldn’t have met and learnt about places and things I wouldn’t have known about. Win-win!

How do I couchsurf?

To sleep for free when you’re traveling, really just takes four easy steps:

1. Join a couch surfing community.

2. Fill in your profile.

3. Start connecting with travelers and the community – host at home before you hit the road if you can.

4. Request to stay with a host (with good reviews) and, if they accept, go and stay with them.

It’s actually that simple.

Where can I join a couch surfing community?

These groups will help you to sleep for free when you’re traveling:

Couchsurfing, the original site, has been around since 2004.  Unfortunately, it has now gone corporate and the backlash is many people leaving it and going for newer communities that have replaced it. Make up your own mind but this article is an interesting read.

I used to use couchsurfing, and never had any problems with it – only great experiences, but now have also joined the following communities for both hosting and being hosted.

Couchers.org – they state their goal as “to be a viable alternative to Couchsurfing.”

TrustRoots – another alternative that is growing with over 100,000 members to date. It has a buch of ‘circles’ which are interest groups such as ‘hikers’ vegetarians etc, which makes information sharing and get togethers even more easy.

Be Welcome – with over 200,000 members this is another great site focussed on meeting people and hosting. They state it will always be free and is run by a democratic group of volunteers. (There are some amazing volunteers out there!)

BeaLocal – For people looking for local experiences, whether in nearby cities or in faraway countries, which includes places to stay with local families. 

Facebook couchsurfing groups – I have also joined a number of Facebook groups or communities that center on couch surfing and meeting locals. There are too many to name here, but get onto your facebook page, in search type in couchsurfing and the country or city you are looking for, and see what you get. There are really a lot – just a few in the looooong list I got when I searched are in the pic ↓

For females, there are also plenty of similar facebook groups that focus on meeting and sharing of information. I use these three
“Girls Who Travel”
“Host a Sister”
“Host a Sister – 50 plus”

How to be a good surfer!

There are a few things you can to to make sure your experience, and your hosts experience is a good one. (And of course it helps if you get good reviews from your host!)

1. Read what the host you are communicating with has to say and don’t send a cut and paste spam message to everyone in the town you are hoping to visit just to get a bed. Hosts hate this, and its usually quite obvious!

2. Join in with your host and their family in their daily activities when invited and when possible. Learn about each other as you go.

3. Be respectful of differences in ways of living – you’re there to learn about local life after all!

4. Be clean – keep yourself and your habits clean. Clean clothes (usually people will let you use their laundry if they have one), clean hands, and of course clean feet i.e. don’t wear dirty shoes in the home – or even shoes at all.

5. Be tidy – don’t let your ‘stuff’ get spread around the place. Its not what they invited you into their home for.

6. Guys – if you find the loo seat down, put it down again after use!! It may sound silly but for the females hosting you, it can be a real bug-bear!

7. Share or give something, and if you are out and about, always offer to at least split the costs. Sharing can be stories, meals, your language, your favorite bottle of wine. Its about giving and receiving.

8. Be reliable – if you have to cancel at the last minute, then make sure you let your host know. If you say you will be there at a certain time, be punctual.

9. After your stay, assuming it was positive, leave a comment (reference) for your host.

Let me know in the comments if this was helpful and if there are any other groups, or good couch surfer tips I should mention. That’d be great! TIA.

A Quick Guide of useful tools I use – to help you plan your trip

These are a few important links to use when you plan your trip. They are affiliate links, but I use them all for my travels, and if you do too it will help me keep producing this content – and at no extra cost to you. Cheers!

Flights – use skyscanner or booking.com to find and book your flight – I often find the same flight for a lot cheaper than booking direct with the airline!

Insurance – Use EKTA or SafetyWing. TBH I usually use EKTA – they accept any nationality, any age and its ok if you are already traveling – which is perfect for me!

Accommodation – use booking.com or for a hostel – Hostelworld. I use both if not doing one of the above things!

Internet – buy a yesim eSim or Airalo before you go. I use both depending on where I am going.

Buses, trains, ferries – 12Go is always my first option for buses, ferries and trains

Car rental – use DiscoverCars – they are my ‘go-to’ car rental site

Hiking – I use AllTrails for online and offline hiking trails – it means you know exactly where you are on the trail and makes getting lost a lot harder!!

Tours and Activities – book with Viator, GetYourGuide, or Eatwith.

Thanks so much if you use one of these links – it costs you nothing but helps me keep writing!

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