About Bunk-a-Biker

Bunk-a-Biker is a worldwide community of motorcycle riders who voluntarily provide accommodations to traveling bikers. It's a network that is designed to be utilized along the road for meeting new friends, making road family, and getting support for maintenance needs. While it is a privilege to use, it's not rightfully designed to be used purely for the sake of saving money, but instead to promote the togetherness and support of a motorcycle-enthusiast community. Bunk-a-Biker is built on respect and we will uphold that expectation amongst all members.

#MakingFriendsOneBunkAtATime

A BRIEF HISTORY

Bunk-a-Biker was thought up in 2014 by Kjetil (Che-tyl) Lystad of Oslo, Norway, who still resides in Sarpsborg. Kjetil would offer his place to friends riding through, and before long his name started getting passed around to other riders.

So began the idea of a motorcycle-specific group along the lines of CouchSurfing, which had become popular worldwide. "Screw it, let's make this group be for all bikers to unite under the idea of offering their place to their fellow riders who traveled through," he said. The name popped into his head — catchy and simple — and he began promoting it locally and to his friends.

On 2 February 2015 he started the first Facebook group, Bunk-a-Biker Norway, followed by the Facebook page of the same name on 15 October 2016. The ball was rolling, and members offered to start and run branched-off local groups for Denmark, Sweden, Australia, the US and beyond.

By 2017 it had gone quiet. Kjetil could not take the idea as far as he wanted, for personal reasons, and the regional groups sat dormant.

In June 2019 Zee Traveler — a full-time traveller living on the bike — messaged Kjetil offering to help bring it back. It was exactly what he had wanted to do, and he handed it to her.

She was recovering from a serious accident at the time, and took the project up partly to stay focused while she could not travel. She built the website, wrote the mission statement, streamlined the map and made a key for it, reconnected the stagnant groups, designed the logo, and started promoting it properly. Bunk-a-Biker is what it is today because of that.

WHO RUNS IT

Zee Traveler is the owner and CEO. Everything on the site is created and managed by her. She still spends much of her time helping members learn to use the map, keeping the map data organised, running the infrastructure across several social platforms, marketing, giving interviews, and explaining what Bunk-a-Biker is to anyone who will give her a minute.

Kjetil Lystad founded it and was its first CEO.

It is a community effort. A number of people volunteer their time to help with the Facebook activity and other projects.

IT IS FREE

No money changes hands between a guest and a host. Ever. If a host asks you to pay, or you see a price on a listing, tell us.

Gifts are a different matter and are welcome if you want to: something from where you have come from, a six pack, a bottle of wine, dinner, a thank you note.

Bunk-a-Biker is supported by Patreon subscribers and donations. The rest comes out of Zee's pocket.

YOU DO NOT NEED SOCIAL MEDIA

The network started on Facebook and there are still regional groups there, plus a separate group for hosts. You can use Bunk-a-Biker without any of it. Some hosts ask for a social profile as a way of getting to know someone; not having one is not by itself a reason to refuse anybody.

Being removed from a Facebook group does not remove you from Bunk-a-Biker. Facebook is not required to be part of this.

IT IS SELF-MODERATED

Accountability sits with each person in the network. We provide no promises of safety or security. What we do is set expectations clearly, give people the information they need to make their own judgements, and step in when something goes wrong.

THE REGIONAL GROUPS

The network started on Facebook and there are still groups for most parts of the world, plus a separate one for hosts. You do not need any of them to use Bunk-a-Biker.