We’ve all had that one friend who came back from their spring break and told everyone about their amazingly cheap or completely free travels. Couchsurfing, an online platform for travel accommodations, is often at the center of their stories — because it’s all about telling the unbelievable story. And isn’t it unbelievable to be able to travel for free?

I’ve been guilty of it myself: I’ve given into the temptation of wowing all my friends with this website I’ve found, where everything is free. In terms of money, Couchsurfing is free, but as this article on a blog — slow vegan travel — suggests, Couchsurfing costs one thing: time.

The problem with spreading the myth that Couchsurfing is free is that people who are unwilling to spend time are drawn to it. These people expect Couchsurfing to be a hotel without payment, a place to sleep at night and leave their stuff during the day, a place where room service does the cleaning. In reality, Couchsurfing is being a temporary part of a family, with all that the role entails. In our own families, we have our chores: we might do the dishes, clean the toilets or walk the dog. We also eat together and spend time together, we tell each other how our day has been and upon returning from our exotic travels, tell each other all about it. All of this adds to the time one must spend on Couchsurfing. And, just like at home with our actual families, we enjoy it.

Couchsurfing hosts expect their visitors to spend time with them. When you think about it, the alternative seems ridiculous — it’s not some idealistic non-profit charity organization fighting for the rights of often privileged, Western travelers to be able to travel cheap. Just as we Couchsurfers pay with our time, our hosts are paid in our time. That is to say, our hosts take us around their city and show us what they deem important. They get to take us to the national park nearby, to their favorite restaurant and so on — not a horrible price to pay, right?

But if you aren’t interested in this kind of intimate cultural experience, if you’re in New York to visit all the museums, visiting Zanzibar to lie on the beach and sip cocktails, or swinging by London for a conference, then get a hotel. I’ve had friends come up to me and ask me if they should try Couchsurfing when they’re travelling for work, because they don’t want to pay for accommodations. My answer has always been no, unless they’re ready to spend their days and evenings with the people they stay with. My friends have replied that they’d rather not. We saved each other: they avoided awkward encounters, and I avoided hurtful rejections from Couchsurfing hosts disappointed by my uncommitted friends.

As the slow vegan travel blog post also states, the stakes at risk are the goodwill of the Couchsurfing community — and without goodwill, the concept cannot exist. Every time a host has a bad experience with a Couchsurfer, they become less likely to want to host again. And the last thing I want as a keen user of the site is a situation in which I and other travelers are not trusted enough to use the service. I have gone skiing and eaten sheep tongue with my hosts in Iran, I’ve had a Filipino picnic in the middle of Wadi Shab with my hosts in Oman and I would love for everyone else to be able to have such experiences. But more importantly, I have become part of unlikely friendships and relationships, ones that I maintain to this day. That maintenance is the cost of Couchsurfing — although, I must admit, it’s never felt much like a cost to me.