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The glaring limitation of most social networks is that by the end of the day, you're still staring at a computer screen. Have you really made friends if you've never actually spent time with them? CouchSurfing is different because it's only incidentally a social network. At the heart of its community is a social bargain: host a couch surfer as he or she backpacks through your country, and another couch surfer will host you. For the young and intrepid, CouchSurfing is a way to travel cheaply, gain life experience and make friends the old-fashioned way: face to face.

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