Friendstay

If you’re here as someone with a home and you’re curious about hosting a friend for a short stretch, this page is for you.
If you’re here as someone experimenting with a lighter, nomadic way of living, this is also for you.

Either way, here’s the heart of it:

A Friendstay is one person offering another person a soft landing for about a week.
Nothing long-term. No recurring obligation. No lifestyle overhaul.
Just a simple, human-scale arrangement that works best inside an existing circle of trust.

What a Friendstay looks like

A guest brings a sleeping pad and a small footprint — two backpacks at most.
They roll out a mat in a corner of your living room, office, sunroom, or spare space that normally sits empty. No bed, no furniture shuffle, no special preparation.

A host offers a few days to a week — not months.
And after that, they may go months without hosting anyone at all. This is meant to be occasional, optional, and respectful of the host’s normal life.

A guest, meanwhile, keeps moving.
They might spend a week with one friend, a week camping, a week visiting family, a week in a cheap Airbnb or short sublet, then another Friendstay later on.
Not displaced — simply opting into a lighter, more flexible season of life, somewhere between travel and slow nomadism.

The spirit of it

Friendstay isn’t a business model.
It isn’t a platform.
It isn’t a revolving-door housing system.

It’s an open-source method: a small idea that anyone in a close-knit friend group or family network can borrow, adapt, or ignore.

The idea is simple:

• If you’re a host, you retain 100% control over when and whether you host, who you host, and for how long.
• If you’re a guest, you also retain 100% control over where you stay, how long, and what’s comfortable for you.

There is no matching system, no pressure, and no expectation that anyone participates more than they want.

The host experience

Hosting shouldn’t feel like taking on a roommate.
It should feel like offering a couch-surf-style welcome, except much lighter and more intentional.

You can think of it like:

• letting a friend roll out a sleeping pad in the corner,
• sharing a couple of meals if you both want to,
• having someone around who contributes lightly (dishes, conversation, maybe a grocery run),
• and then returning to your normal solo routine a week later.

Most hosts do this once in a great while — a week out of several months, if even that.

Nothing is built around frequent turnover.
This isn’t meant to affect your privacy, disrupt your home, or change the energy of your life. It’s more like adding a small moment of companionship and kindness.

The guest experience

Guests traveling this way keep things extremely lightweight.
A small food kit. A few days of fresh produce stored without a fridge. A sleeping pad. A backpack or two. And a willingness to move each week.

In practice, a guest might:

• spend a week at a Friendstay,
• camp or backpack a few days,
• stay with family for a month,
• find a comfortable sublet or Airbnb for a month,
• then repeat that rhythm.

It’s essentially a slow-nomad pattern — flexible, low-cost, and low-impact — but grounded in real relationships instead of faceless booking systems.

Why this works

Because the commitments are small.

Hosts aren’t signing on for anything long-term.
Guests aren’t anchoring to one place.
No one is tied into something they can’t exit gracefully.

Everyone can say “yes” when it feels right and “not this week” when it doesn’t.

It’s built on:

• autonomy
• transparency
• lightness
• kindness
• mutual respect
• and good timing

Nothing more complicated than that.

A simple checklist that keeps it clean

For hosts:

• You choose if and when you host.
• A week is plenty.
• No need for fridge space, spare beds, or rearranging your home.
• Clear communication upfront prevents awkwardness.

For guests:

• Arrive self-sufficient and low-footprint.
• Bring your own sleeping setup.
• Keep food and gear minimal.
• Move along after a week unless both sides decide otherwise.
• Have backup options: camping, family, sublets, monthly Airbnbs.

Why I'm trying this

I’m experimenting with this lifestyle myself — as a guest — because it fits the way I want to move through the world right now: light, relational, minimal, flexible.

But this isn’t “my program.”
It’s just a pattern.
And patterns work best when different people adapt them in ways that make sense.

If this resonates with your life, try it in your own circle.
If not, that’s okay too.

Friendstay is simply a small idea — a human one — that might help someone you care about land softly for a week when they need it.