Editing Tips for women travelers

There is no reason to talk everything nicely, it's clear: Abuse also
can happen and also happened while traveling with Couchsurfing and Hospitality Club.
This is a reason why there are some security features and a reason why
female travellers should know the security features and also use them!

==Finding and a Host and getting a guest==

===Profile===
The '''profile''' says quite lot about the human behind, it can be fake but an empty profile says nothing at all.

===Comments from other members===
It's one of the most important features at Hospitality Club. Read the
past comments that your future Guest/Host got from other members. When
you have doubts, look on person who gave the comment. Also use the
comments and help other members and alike female travellers.

===Passport / ID Check===
Insistences on Passport/ID check and compare it with ID-number and
name you've got. No bad thoughts, no worries.

===Legal position===
Inviting a stranger to come home to you or going to a stranger? What
happen when something happened? How is the legal issue? Can they do
anything or do they just tell you that it was your own fault?
Different countries, different laws. Is there general information
which can given?

===What is when something happened?===
Hospitality Club maps and logs many things which are going on on
hospitalityclub.org. Please contact us if anything occurs, we will
take it very seriously and private and we will do everything what we
can do that it doesn't happen again.
* writing more friendly
* working together with other hospitality exchange networks (exchange
from ips / times etc.)
*

===Women Traveller Group===
There is a group called "Women Travller", you can join them and also..
raison d'être?

===closing words & summary????!!!===
you don't have to get paranoid, stay only with girls.. commen sense!!! 




==Experiences==

===Woman @ HC===
As anything else connected with travelling and meeting new people, the [[Hospitality Club]] contains a RISK especially for woman... We try to limitate that risk to a minimum by our [[safety]] features which are explained once more below, but in order to deal with the "remaining-risk" we wish to point out the following:

If you should receive a message, that sounds strange to you and you don't know whether this HC memeber will be a decent guest or host, take some precautions:
Insist on our most important safety feature and ASK for the pasport number and NOTE it down. (You should do this anyway even if you trust the person totally, as there is always a remaining risk. We know always better afterwards, right!)

When you meet your host, or receive the guest, ASK to be shown the passport, to be sure that it is the same person. Arrange a meeting in the town, before taking the guest to your house/going to your hosts house. Doing this, you can get a first impression and decide what to do next.
Tell your friends that you will have a guest or where you will stay when you are travelling, so in case s.th. happens they know where to look for you. (Give them a number or address)
If you are in doubts whether your guest or host is honest or if you feel he might behave not correctly, tell your friends where you put his passport number. Give them also some oney so in the worst case thy can buy you a coffin and pay the ceremonials or in a less worse case buy you back. (Of course there can be people with false passports, there are countries where you can actually buy passports but htis kind or risk exists outside the club as well and cannot be avoided. If you, however, use your common sense and all our safety features, we think you can help yourself.)
If you are a host, a very good trick is as well to actually invite your friends to join you and your guest to avoid any kind of predicaments. Thus you have a nice evening and in the same time contribute to our aim to provide intercultural understanding.
If you are very busy and cannot be there, only leave your guest alone if you feel you can trust him. Otherwise arrange with him to meet somewhere as soon as you are back from work or so. Travellers should be able to deal with that kind of situation.
If you are travelling and you are afraid of staying at some "strangers" house but still wish to meet locals do the following:
Ask to meet your host in town, before you decide definetly whether you'll stay at his house, and tell him that you will do so beforehand.
Or ask a woman to stay with
Or travel with a friend.

In the worst case you can stay in hostels or hotels and still profit from the HC idea by meeting locals for a cup of coffee or asking them to show you around (if they indicated this service in their profile)

IF you are a woman who tends to be too "nice" and often fails to say "no", please be aware of the fact, that your behavior might be interpreted as an invitation. This kind of problem (the man feels invited to approach you in a sexual way or thinks he can easily take advantage of you by asking for money, or even stealing things without being punished) might arise due to differing mentalities and background culture. ( Well this sounds discriminating, does it?) If you feel that you actually cannot deal with the guest or host you met, PLEASE take action and either ask your friends to help or if they cannot do so feel free to leave or kick your guest out, if this should be necessary and report your problem to abuse@hospitalityclub.org. However, don't expect profiles to be deleted on Hospitality Club.

On CouchSurfing you should leave a reference that clearly tells what happens. In some cases the profile will be deleted, unlike in Hospitality Club. <!-- I have experience with that :) [[User:Guaka|Guaka]] 02:53, 29 January 2006 (CET) -->


[[Category:Tips]]

{{from hospexguide}}
[[Category:Women]]