Is WarmShowers what it seems to be?

[Pale Rider]

That FB article is pure hogwash.

It does have the appearance of being written by a single issue campaign loony who has a vendetta against warmshowers.

 

[TomDW]

I've hosted a couple of people and has been a lovely experience. Probably could get wearing if you did it too much. I've hosted people via Couchsurfing in it's early days and I'd say Warmshowers is more successful because you instantly connect with your fellow cycle tourers. It's a much more smaller network and better for it.

 

[rualexander]

Used it once in France when no open campsites near our route that day.
Stayed in a lovely tiny hilltop village with a nice chap who fed us well and gave us a room in his house.
Pleasant evening talking about cycle touring etc.
Don't think I'd want to do it every night, but now and again it's a good option.

 

[HobbesOnTour]

I haven't used WS so far, was thinking of doing this on my future trips,

Is this not a part of the problem? Warmshowers, these days, seems to be viewed as a tool for finding places to stay rather than for connecting like minded people. When I signed up I had only the loosest, vaguest of notions for ever using it as a guest.

I'd agree with the general tone of that post. My thoughts on WS are well documented hereabouts.

The soul of the community is gone - not a comment on the members. I recall the "witch" shutting down the Facebook chat when desperate cyclists tried to use it to connect when the website was down.

My own questions wrt to data storage and security were ignored and I was threatened with a ban.

It's potentially a great way to meet people and see the "real" world wherever you might be.

 

[dimrub]

Is this not a part of the problem? Warmshowers, these days, seems to be viewed as a tool for finding places to stay rather than for connecting like minded people. When I signed up I had only the loosest, vaguest of notions for ever using it as a guest.

Well, you can use this service to either stay or host, and there isn't much demand for cycling accommodations in Israel. But yeah, the idea was not to save a few bucks on hotel - for me at least, the flight was and remains the main expense, but rather to connect with similar minded people. Luckily, alternatives exist. One can look for them here, among other places.

 

[HobbesOnTour]

there isn't much demand for cycling accommodations in Israel.

I'm not so sure about that. I've read of quite a few bike tourists in Israel.
As far as I recall, one of the issues with travelling in that part of the world is visa stamps in passports. A stamp from a "wrong" country can deny access to another. Some folks are lucky and have dual citizenship so can use separate passports, the Dutch (unusually to my mind) offer two separate passports to some of their citizens specifically to get around this issue.

In any case, I've advocated in the past that something like Warm showers is a great way (especially for people starting off) to do a bit of touring closer to home with the added advantage of meeting like minded people.

If nothing else, having a look at the map gives a good indication of people near and far who are interested in the same things as ourselves.

 

[dimrub]

I'm not so sure about that. I've read of quite a few bike tourists in Israel.

Perhaps you're right, we'll see. I haven't seen many, but just in case, I did fill in a profile on trustroots.org, which appears to be an alternative to WS.

As far as I recall, one of the issues with travelling in that part of the world is visa stamps in passports. A stamp from a "wrong" country can deny access to another. Some folks are lucky and have dual citizenship so can use separate passports, the Dutch (unusually to my mind) offer two separate passports to some of their citizens specifically to get around this issue.

I think one can ask to have a stamp put on a separate page of paper, rather than in the passport. Israelis don't get any stamps in their passport at entry/exit (it's all biometric and automatic these days), but I'm not sure whether it's true for foreigners.