Another godfather of Couchsurfing
comment 2 Written by Vicky Baker on February 6, 2009 – 12:20 pm

Ah, they’re all coming out of the woodwork now. I’ve already mentioned Jim Haynes and MeetURPlanet founder Jeff Mitchell as forerunners to Couchsurfing.com. Now introducing … Ramon Stoppelenburg, the Dutch founder of LetMeStayForADay.

Ramon travelled the world from May 2001 to July 2003. He did so without any money, relying on people who had agreed to host him through his website. His invite-me-over page led to 3,577 invitations from 72 countries.

Inspired by online schemes such as SendMeADollar and the RedPaperClipGuy, he gained sponsorship to help him travel the long distances, and hitchhiked the rest.

Read an extract from his book (translated from Dutch) on WorldHum.

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2 Responses to “Another godfather of Couchsurfing”

  1. Oh, that’s amazing – I never realised people were doing a form of couchsurfing almost a decade ago. Great research.

    By Lara Dunston on Feb 6, 2009 | Reply

  2. Yeah, and that’s not to mention Servas, which has been going since the 1940s (joomla.servas.org). If anyone knows any other old-school leaders in the field, let me know. I’m trying to compile a list.

    By Vicky Baker on Feb 7, 2009 | Reply

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