We're travelers who hosted 443 people from 51 countries in 4 months - in a two-bedroom flat.

How often did it turn into a massive orgy?

We're sorry to disappoint people who would be interested in the project for obviously wrong reasons, there is no such thing in our house.

I don't really understand the neccessity of your indiegogo project.

What need is their for the Travel House when we have such websites as couchsurfing.com?

The Travel House gathers many diverse people under the same roof, where they learn from each other, share things, skills and ideas, organize workshops, and get in touch with the local community. The simple CS hosting could never be as effective, intensive and interactive as The Travel House.

So, like, a hostel?

Not at all. First, it's completely free, and second, people nowadays don't mingle so much in hostels, they are mostly hidden behind their tablets and mobile phones, or stay in their room (experience of many people we spoke with). In our house people constantly communicate/share, and they really learn what's it like to live with people from other cultures, which you cannot really feel in a hostel :)

Why am I having a hard time believing this? 4 months roughly equates to 120 days, which means in your 2 bedroom apartment, you and an additional 3.7 people in your place EACH DAY....

No others in your building complained? Also, even if no one did, how do you keep on a schedule to constantly have almost 4 additional occupants in your house every single nigh? Even in a house with more bedrooms and space, this is still cramped for this many adults.

The answer to your questions lies in two words: Organization and Planning.

I think the concept is you provide in depth answers, not cryptic riddles...

Yeah, this AMA is just not cool at all. 3.7 per day, but lower they said they had a refugee for 2 straight months...which I just don't understand.

Can't stand people who answer genuine questions with DUH, I USED ORGANIZATION, STUPID!.

This AMA reeks of a poorly planned publicity stunt.

The apartment had very little furniture and people slept on their mats, in sleeping bags; when you have no furniture, there is much more space. Rules of behavior were posted on the wall. One of the rules, for example, was never to wait for anyone in front of the building, in order to avoid disturbing the neighbors. There were also rules about saving power, using the bathroom etc.

"Never wait for anyone in front of the building, in order to hide the fact that we're running an illegal flop-house out of this apartment building." There, fixed that for ya

Illegal means breaking the law, which didn't happen.

No problem, we can expand the answer. The house was always full of people (well, during the day it was empty as everyone was outside), and we had an application form for those who would like to come, you couldn't just appear at the door. If there was space in the house for the specified date, we would accept the application.

It would be awesome if you find some time and come to the Travel club web page (in english, of course) to see how it was. There is written everything, from issues to good moments..

I did... and I now know why when I travel around the world that people are wary of renting places out, and it's hard to find cool places to rent. It may seem awesome to you for this, but you can't even understand how this abuse of a property hurts the rest of the travelers in the world.

But what do you care? You apparently go to low income countries and take advantage of these people. You put shame to the other good will travelers of this earth.

There was no damage to the property and we had wonderful relations with the neighbors. What is a low-income country for you?

Low income country? Seriously, enough trolling. Your site talks about renting in Georgia now, which is one of the hardest economically hit countries in Eastern Europe... So please keep taking advantage of that..

And of course your neighbors don't complain to your face.. that's the American thing to do. They sullenly suffer through your shit.. then complain loudly behind your back to others and the internet.

Last year we were in Spain, which is the 13th largest economy in the world. I doubt it can be called "low income country" by any standard :) And landlord was quite happy with us, she came to the flat on at least five occasions, and made no complaint. We were actually more quiet than the local population ;)

Did you get to know all 443? Who was most interesting?

There was a guy from Italy who had walked for 2 months. And a girl who could balance a knife on her nose!

What about the other 441?

Most of them were cool.

Can you elaborate on how this works?

-Do people apply to stay, or can they just show up?

-If it's free, how have you covered expenses for the past travel houses?

-What's the typical stay like for an average joe-schmo visiting the city?

-What's expected of the people who stay with you?

-What's your story? How and why have you traveled the world? Can you tell us more about yourself and where you come from?

The indiegogo page doesn't offer that much information about these details. Would love to hear more from you here.

As we come from countries that were subject to very prohibitive visa regimes when we started traveling, our first travels were east and south: in our case this means Asia and Africa, basically everything you could reach overland, preferably by hitchhiking.

Thank you for your feedback :) Here you can see the House rules from past that answer ur questions http://www.thetravelclub.org/travel-house/granada/597-house-rules-and-application-form :)

But here it is here too in a shorter form:

• People apply to stay

• It's free and all is covered from donations which people can leave if they feel like it

• Usually up to 5 nights

• To follow simple house rules, and dive in the community spirit if possible :)

In general, we are a group of travellers from all over the Balkans and further, trying to spread the travel bug on others with positive outcomes :) We are all experienced in travelling especially of the beaten path by any means of transportation, accomodation and budget :)

ok I'll bite, how did you save someone's life?

We convinced a guy from Syria not to go back home, as the borders were still open at the time and he wanted to return. So he stayed with us for two months. After the project ended, we took him to our country. He is still here.

What did you do to recoup some of the costs addociated with having guests? Did you eat together also?

Most of the time we ate together. There was a donation box in the house, for the running costs. It worked out better than expected :)

Hey, I'm from Turkey and I have a nice apartment in Istanbul. I've read your troubles of finding a place to rent when you mention foreigners and for two months. Well, fuck that. Just let me know next time and if my home is available (no current renters) you can get it.

Thanx man! We're glad that somebody gets the gist of the idea, which is to help, not to harm.

Tell us about the sex

Frankly, we don't think there was much of it going on, as nobody had the privilege of having a private room :)

Weren't you concerned about having some strange people steal from you, or abuse drugs in your flat?

We had a strict policy about no drugs, getting wasted or smoking inside. You can check out all house rules. If anyone was to disrespect them, we would ask that person to leave. But it didn't happen, everyone behaved fine, nor was anything ever stolen

I think you've been pretty lucky. While I'm sure that most people would agree to those rules, I know my luck, I'd get a drug-abusing thief. :)
Congrats on the great run, it has to be insane to have that many people come through your lives in such a short period of time.

We found that the house somehow self-regulates and there was hardly any need to remind people of the rules. Maybe it's more dangerous to host only one person at your place; when there are so many people around it's quite hard to steal or do any mischief, as others would prevent it.

dope! I salute you!

we salute you too :) <3

share with ur friends ^{_^}

Really cool idea, imo. What was the most fun/interesting sharing experience you had with a guest?

Huh, that would be very difficult to reply to, we met many unique and amazing people :)

Why Tbilisi?

It's located at a crossroads linking many potential travel routes between Europe and Asia. Plus, the nature is supposed to be stunning in the Caucasus mountains.

Do you remember all of them and names? I would struggle getting past 10

There was a guestbook where people could write something about themselves. But you're right, it's impossible to remember everyone :(

Any visitors like Borat?

We didn't ask. Btw, don't you feel that Borat is kinda offensive for the people of Kazakhstan?

wish you luck guys!

thanx man!

Any of the guests you didn't like, didn't get on with or thought they where creepy/scary?

Some of them were rather smelly. They had to be sent to the shower the moment they stepped in.

Do we have to donate if we wanna visit?

No, it's not obligatory, you are welcome to visit anyway! We are now trying to get the founding through indiegogo :) But also donations at the House are more then welcome :) Donations cover the rent, facilites and other expenses

hope u'll join and spread the word with ur friends <3

How long were they staying? One week or one day?

from 1 day to 2 months (a refugee from Syria)

Uhh...my life is spent walking on foot and living off the generosity of strangers. Can I join you guys with my dog?

Humans are humans everywhere, geneoristy of people is best recognized when travelling ;)

Unfortunatelly, pets are not allowed in the house

Tbilisi is your next guesthouse location? Cool. Be sure to check out Armenia next door - the Armenian border is just an hour and a half away! The border province of Lori is beautiful, with incredible ancient monasteries. Here's a free online Armenia guidebook for real explorers to explore with. And plus a bit of a photo gallery of some of Armenia's highlights.

Then you can make your way to the unrecognized Republic of Mountainous Karabakh, and hike on the Janapar Trail (that's the website, this is the Facebook page, which I worked on setting up. There will be some more volunteers helping keep the trail up this summer in case anyone's interested.

Awesome, thank you for your information, hopefully some will join for the volunteer work :)

Your contact page is broken: http://i.imgur.com/V4atRzL.png

Fixed! :) Thanks a lot!

Hey, thanks for doing this! I only have one question. Did you ever get bedbugs from any of the travelers who came through? Presumably, they go through tons of other houses of people who also travel, right?

Luckily, no such thing happened :) People use their own sleeping bags/mats, and if someone is smelly when they arrive, we send them to shower immediately

wow, if all this is true, maybe we ll even meet in tbilisi ;)

Sure, let us know!

It would be great if there were more travel houses, all over the world. Like travel bases in every country. It would save me a lots of money. :) Nice way for low-cost traveling. Good luck guys!

maybe one day it spreads as an idea all around the globe :) untill then, come and visit Tbilisi :) <3

I think this is so awesome man. The world needs more places like this.

thanx! that's exactly what we think!

I couch surfed as we backpacked through Europe and found the most fascinating part was the vast differences in cultures. Which traveler helped enrich your understanding of other culture the most? How have your travelers impacted how you live now?

We have learned to be more modest and appreciative of what we have. Because a huge part of world's population doesn't even have running water, let alone electric power or Internet access. People here whine about having no job opportunities etc, unhappy and completely oblivious to the fact that what they do have is luxury that not a great percentage of inhabitants of this planet enjoy. It's hard to single out one person who helped us understand this, but couch surfing in the African slums was surely an eye-opener.

This is really cool, I want to host travelers when I get my own place. What is the best way to get started?

couchsurfing.org is definitely the best place to start!

Who smelled the worst??

I worked in the Times Square Levi's, and boy oh boy, so some foreigners smell!

travellers who didn't shower regulary? :D

-_-

As in, which travelers from which countries smelled the worst.

Whether from the West, the East or some other side of the world, people can be unbearably smelly occasionally, but after the shower they all smell like roses :D

BO-RING.

What did you expect, a traveller to be racist and point fingers at certain countries? Nope, every individual is an individual for itself.

Even worse looking at your stupid indiegogo site.. Basically you fuck Landlords around the world by lying to them, and renting a small place. Then you pack it with a bunch of dirty hippies for a few months on end. You even admit that the "laundry and showers are running 24x7" in these units.

Anyone that says they don't mind living next to a flop-house or in the apartment next door is lying. Also, because of people like this, it is hard for the rest of us responsible folks to rent when we're overseas.

We tell the landlords there will be many guests; we just don't specify the details, as most people are unfamiliar with (and paranoid about) the concept of hospitality. All the guests are quiet and well-behaved so the neighbors have no reason to complain. Some people might be a bit dirty when they arrive, but we can assure you they're more than clean when they leave :)

So you lie to your landlords. What a horrible horrible example to set. I really hope you are not from America.. otherwise you continue to spread the 'Ugly American' stereotype around the globe. Some of the pics from your site show 15 people in the place... and that's just in the front rooms.

I don't care how "quiet" your guests think they are, or you think they are. There is no way for all of these people to be quiet enough to not offend the neighbors. Also, again, fuck you for lying to the landlords. And yes... "not specifying the details" is lying!

Neighbors also thought we were nice and quiet; we asked them many times if everything was ok. But thanx for your insightful observations :)

I'll repeat this, since you're a different poster. Of course your neighbors don't complain to your face.. that's the American thing to do. They sullenly suffer through your shit.. then complain loudly behind your back to others and the internet. In the end it enforces the ugly rumor of young travelers, and the rumor of the Ugly American

All this happened very far from the USA :)