45DayThrowaway

Congrats! I did the same thing (45-day railpass and all) last year and couchsurfed the whole way (you should look into couchsurfing (couchsurfing.org), I met a lot of great people through that service that showed me around their city and never once paid to stay anywhere). I actually moved to Chicago based on how much I loved it when I was on my trip, it completely changed my entire life.

It's a little tougher to couchsurf in groups, I feel like hosts are less likely to host in a situation where they are possibly outnumbered by strangers in their own home.

I met so many cool people while couchsurfing, a few of whom I still keep in contact with. I would usually send out the couch requests 2-4 days in advance but the success rate depends on many things:

• If they have the time/couch available.
• Your references from previous people (before I started surfing I had a bunch of my friends write references for me)
• The host's personal taste in their desired couchsurfer. I had a few hosts (women) tell me they only accepted my request because they thought I was attractive (I'm sure it happens much more with male hosts and female surfers).

In many cities I had only 1 person say yes after e-mailing 20-25 people, so you're close to having no one to stay with many times, but toward the end of the trip they opened up more because I had more references and got more positive answers.

Well I set out to couchsurf the entire country so that was my angle. As for the "you'll spend all day sending requests"....do you realize how long you were sitting on a train between destinations? I know you said you only used 11 segments but I used all 18, which is a hell of a long time on trains (shortest being probably DC to Philly at 5 or so hours I think, longest being LA to Seattle at 36). You have plenty of down time to shoot out requests.

I feel like I got a good enough idea of the person I was staying with by reading their profile. I also feel like that could go both ways though, I just lucked out and ended up staying with really awesome people. There was only 1 time where I was weirded out by my hosts but I didn't choose them, they saved me when I had no place to go one night so I didn't mind toughing it out overnight.

Girls aren't the only ones who get hit on by their hosts, it happens on both sides. I had 3 hosts and a host's friend come onto me, in addition to a girl at a bar in Kansas City who I ended up going home with because her friend told me I could crash in his room if I drove her home (she had a bit to drink).

I went to one couchsurfing meeting in Boston to meet up with my host for that night, it wasn't really my thing.

Also: Austin is badass, that was my second favorite city on the trip behind Chicago.