Alex Martin, senior in business administration, has been couch surfing for several years, nationally and internationally. Photo by Charlie Harness

Couch surfers breaks the first rules of Internet behavior that we all memorize – it's a website on which you post where you live in order to allow people you met on the Internet to sleep on your couch. Or, of course, you can use it to sleep on other people's couches.

The website is set up for traveling --- people search for each other based on the destination they want to visit, meet up and give each other places to stay. It's cheap, easy, and has allowed Alex Martin, senior in business administration, to become acquainted with people from all over the world.

 "It's a cultural exchange project – it's a new way to meet and make friends while you're traveling," Martin said.

Jenny Daniels started couch surfing by letting people sleep on her dorm room floor, but then mainly used the website to travel theU.S. She slept on couches while touring the country for seven months.

"All hotel rooms look the same," Daniels said.

She therefore much preferred the personal, cultural aspect of couch surfing when sight-seeing. For example, in Detroit she stayed with a couch surfer with whom she climbed over a fence into an abandoned theater, complete with a golden ceiling and fraying velvet stage curtain. It was being used as a local impromptu parking lot.

"I wouldn't have known about it had I gone by myself," Daniels said.

She has found a variety of unique experiences this way. In New Orleans, her host brought her to see a street performance of live music on washboards, and in Nashville she met a designer and saw his collection of rhinestone jackets he created for Dolly Parton.

Having a host can help you get to know the city in a way that traditional traveling never could, Martin said. There are even guides for cities on the couch surfing website written by the people that live there.

"Couch surfing is not a free hotel," Martin said. "You take the time to really get to know the person you're stayingwith."

It's true there should never be any monetary transactions – the host is not allowed to charge guests. But by no means should any couch surfer come to someone's house, sleep and leave. You are supposed to get to know each other and show your appreciation in other ways.

"Thoughtful gifts are encouraged, but not mandatory," Martin said.

He personally thinks some of the best ways to show gratitude are through offering to cook or do the dishes.

Most of the couch surfing guidelines are common sense and based on mutual respect. Guests shouldn't assume their host will pick you up from the airport, should follow the house rules, and should keep their space clean. As a host, one should give his or her guest information about the city, or offer to take him or her to a favorite restaurant.

"Understand cultural differences and kind of go with the flow," Martin said.

You can also use the website just to find someone in another city to meet for coffee or to show you around. Ethan Boehm has been couch surfing for three years and spent most of his time hosting -- while living in Morocco, Boehm actually got in trouble because authorities thought he was an unregistered guide, as he showed so many people the website.

The couch surfing website encourages travelers to make sure the person is someone you would be willing to spend time with even if you weren't traveling.

"You can even meet your host on Skype before you go. I've done that before," Martin said.

Another of the website's main purposes is to make sure all the interactions aren't dangerous, and does so by displaying different symbols for safety on the profiles of those who earn them.

However, the main way to increase safety is through references, by having people you've met write on your wall. Another more secure way is a place on the website where you can vouch for each other's personalities. With enough vouches you can get another symbol for safety on your profile.

"The way that vouching works is in order to vouch for someone, you have to have been vouched for three times," Martin said.

Vouching is taken very seriously by the couch surfing community.

For example, Martin prefers to vouch with people that he stays in touch with. Martin stillskypeswith his host family from Morocco.

"Use common sense; don't put yourself in a situation you shouldn't be in," Martin said.

There can be occasional horror stories though. For example,Nilsonremembers arriving at the host address to find a man who didn't have toilet paper or a place for him to sleep and sang him a song on a five-string guitar about bicycles.

"It wasn't a good time, but it was a good story,"Nilsonsaid.

To prepare for a worst case scenario, Martin recommends researching a back up hostel. Couch surfers should be able to leave or ask someone to leave at anytime. Daniels said she additionally always tells her mom where she is and whom she's with.

 "One of the smartest things to do is to say, ‘Hey, let's meet at thecaféby my house first', make sure they aren't anaxemurderer, and then invite them in," Andrew Farr, a long term couch surfer, said.

These safety precautions can make it difficult to break into the program at first because they present a catch-22 - you can't travel or host with less safety symbols, but you won't be able to get safety symbols until you travel or host.

Most couch surfers live in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the East coast here in the U. S., but there are now over three million members worldwide.

 "It was a lot about finding a cheap place to stay and it grew into a lot more than that,"Nilsonsaid. "You get to be part of something that's beyond socialnetworking."