Introducing Public Trips on BeWelcome!
Many of you (185,000 members and growing fast) were hoping for a tool to post your travel plans publicly and to let members in your destinations invite you to stay or meet. We listened and now the “Trips” tool is live and ready to use! Any travel plans? Try it out!
How does it work?
- Create your trip under Find Members | My trips | Create ( https://www.bewelcome.org/trips). Give your dates, destination(s), and a short description.
- You can create a trip to find a host, or just to meet people at your destination! Local members can see your trip and propose to invite you to stay with them or to meet up.
If you receive an invitation, read the member’s profile, and make a decision. Of course you can decline an invitation. Once you accept an invitation, this leg of your trip will be hidden from other members in order to avoid unwanted further invitations.
If you’re looking for travelers to meet in your area, you will find a short list on BeWelcome’s landing page and you can see all public trips in your area under — Find Members | Visitors near me (https://www.bewelcome.org/visitors).
You can check our FAQ for more details about public trips and hosting in general: https://www.bewelcome.org/faq/2. If you still have questions, don’t hesitate to contact our Support team: https://www.bewelcome.org/feedback
How do I use the Trips tool?
- Create the first leg of your trip under Find Members | My trips | Create ( https://www.bewelcome.org/trips)
- Add a title for your trip — for example “My Summer Trip to Europe”, and a description. This might include your motivations to travel, some background, interests, and details of those travelling with you.
- Add how many travelers are in your group, and any additional information, such as whether you are travelling as a family or if you are planning to take part in Hospitality Exchange (HospEx) meetings or camps. Choose the location of your destination, the dates of your visit and how far, distance wise, you are willing to stay or meet from your preferred area.
- Select if you are seeking a host or someone to hang out with or both.
If your trip has several stops, add the additional legs (destinations and dates), and repeat until your journey destinations and dates are completed, and save.
Once completed, you can see your journey under “My trips”. You can edit your trip if changes occur in the course of your trip.
What do other members see?
Potential hosts and local members can see visitors to their area, depending on the distance radius the visitor sets. Hosts can either invite or message the visitor.
If you’re looking for travellers to meet in your area, you will find a short list on BeWelcome’s landing page and you can see all public trips in your area under Find Members | Visitors near me.
Accepting an invitation
- if you receive an invitation, read the member’s profile, and make a decision. Of course you can decline an invitation. Once you accept an invitation, this leg of your trip will be hidden from other members in order to avoid unnecessary further invitations.
Additional tips:
- Be flexible with the distance radius. For example, London is a large city, and even 10 km might be considered central. The wider the radius, the better the chance a host will see your trip.
- You can make a leg “private”, if you already have a host or are staying someplace else (e.g. with extended family or you booked a hostel).
- You can share the link to your trip on social media, and invite potential hosts to join BeWelcome.
- You can check our FAQ for more details about public trips and hosting in general: https://www.bewelcome.org/faq/2
Introducing “Conversations”
- As there are different types of communications between members (Messages, Hosting Requests and — new — Invitations) we have now combined them into one view called “Conversations”.
- You can easily switch between conversations, check when someone contacted you or only display unread conversations.
We are very happy to introduce this new tool, and we hope you are too. If you want to suggest new tools, join the feature request group. Better still, volunteer for a team to ensure steady feature and tool development. We are looking for front end and backend developers, as well as app developers.
A big thank you to the volunteer developers and bug testers,
Enjoy the tool responsibly,
The BeWecome Volunteers
