- Do you want to Create a new account?
- If you forgot your username or password, get a new password emailed to you.
- Having trouble logging in? Please check the FAQ for some solutions.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Warm Showers List?
The Warm Showers List is a hospitality list for touring cyclists. People who are willing to host cyclists sign up and provide their contact information, and may occasionally have someone stay with them and share great stories and a drink.How do I sign up to be a Warm Showers Host?
Register at the Warm Showers site and provide your location and contact information.If I sign up, do I have to host cyclists if they call?
No, of course not. You never have to host cyclists. We encourage you to just say "no" if it's at all inconvenient for you when someone calls. This is always at your discretion.What if I can't host cyclists right now?
Just log into your account and go to "my account" and click on the "Edit" tab. On the Edit tab, Look down the page to the "Warm Showers Host Profile". There you'll find a checkbox for "Not Currently Available". Click that box and nobody will find you via the map or member searches. Please remember that this list is reciprocal hospitality, so you're expected to offer hospitality in the future even if you can't right now.Can I still download a list of hosts in a particular area?
Sure - just go to List Members on one page on the menu and you can download lists from entire countries or states/provinces to either a table or as a file in tab-delimited text format for your spreadsheet (like Excel).How can I see the hosts in just one city or small area?
Use the country selector to go to the country, and then drag the map to the area you want. Or type the first few characters of the city in the city box on the map. Or use the zoom controls on the control panel in the upper left of the map. There are several ways to zoom in. You can zoom in to the exact location of most hosts. Take a look at the Map Instructions Page.My host information is not complete. What do I do?
You can update the information yourself. Go to "my account" and click the "Edit" tab along the top. You can update each piece of information about yourself, including phone and address information. Please keep this information up-to-date!How do I leave a recommendation for someone who hosted me or who stayed with me?
Go to their member page (you can search for them with Find->Member names and cities) and click the link near the bottom that says "Leave a referral for this member".I can't remember my password or my username, or I just can't seem to log in
You can get a one-time login link mailed to you by clicking on request new password. Here you can enter either your username or your email address. It will send you an email with a link that you can click on to log in - and then change your password. (Remember that to get this email, you may have to put wsl@warmshowers.org on your "approved senders" list or whitelist.)How do I change my password?
Log in using your current password (or request a new password), then go to "my account" and click the "edit" tab. You can change it there. Click "submit".I requested a one-time login link so I could change my password, but it doesn't work
The link is a pretty long link, and some email clients (or webmail systems) may break it in half. If you then click on the first part, it won't work right, and you'll get: You have tried to use a one-time login link which has either been used or is no longer valid. Please request a new one using the form below. If this happens, you need to use copy-and-paste to put the two parts together and paste them into the URL field of your web browser.I log in, but it still says I'm not logged in (or I click the link for a one-time login to reset my password and get "access denied")
This is where you log in, and don't get any error, but it still says you're not logged in. The problem is usually "cookies" being turned off or not working. To log into the site you must allow "cookies". These are not a threat to you and are required by most internet sites to work correctly. To allow cookies, you can
- In Internet Explorer, choose Tools->Internet Options->Privacy and set it to anything less than "block all cookies" or...
- Click "sites" in the same dialog box and allow cookies for www.warmshowers.org or...
- In some cases, we've seen IE misbehave and you'll need to delete all cookies (Tools->Internet Options->General->Delete Cookies)
- Try out the excellent free firefox browser as an alternative. If you can't install firefox because you don't have rights on the computer, try Firefox Portable Edition, which doesn't require any installation. (Randy carries this installed on a flash drive when touring to avoid this sort of problem at internet cafes in Latin America.)
- In Internet Explorer 7 you can fix most problems by going to Tools->Internet Options and on the "Advanced" tab click the "reset" button.
- Make sure you've cleared the cache: In IE6 Tools->Internet Options->Delete Files. In Firefox Tools->Clear Private Data; check "cache" and "Authenticated sessions" and click "Clear private data now".
- Any program that blocks cookies will cause this problem. For example, CA Security Center may block cookies in all programs. Try temporarily disabling your firewall and virus protection to see if they're the problem.
- If you can't solve this problem, please ask for help. Send a note to Randy or Roger.
I don't like my username or can never remember my username
You can change your username to anything you like by updating your profile. Go to "my account" and click on the "edit" tab.I keep trying to update my information but it doesn't get updated
Make sure you have clicked SUBMIT. Probably there is an error message at the top of the screen telling you that you haven't filled in a required field (like the state/province or country, zipcode, your full name, etc.). This is fairly easy to miss, and is not a popup like you'd normally expect. Hopefully we can make it better in the future. In the meantime, please look for the error message (in a box at the top of the page) and go ahead and fill in the required fields. If you're still having trouble, email us of course: wsl@warmshowers.org.Why doesn't map detail show for my area?
Google Maps now has actual map detail for most countries, but not for the entire world. However, you can turn on "Satellite" view in the upper right and see topographical features. You can also zoom out to see country borders and the like.My geographic location doesn't show up correctly on the map.
First, please make sure that all your address information is correct (go to "my account" on the menu). If you have provided at least a partial address, particularly with the postal code, that will usually give an approximate (and sometimes very accurate) location. If that doesn't do it, please set your own location on the map. Go to "my account" and click on the "map my location" tab. Zoom in or out, move around, and click where you actually live, and then press the "submit" button.How do I use the map?
The map controls on the left allow you to zoom in or out. The center point of the map stays the same. You can also pan left and right with them. Alternately, you can just grab on the map and move it around to look at the location you're interested in. Take a look at the Map Instructions Page.How did the Warm Showers List come to be?
In 1993, Terry Zmrhal and Geoff Cashman were the originators of this service. In 1996, Roger Gravel began managing the Warm Showers List after he found that Terry had stopped doing it. He has been managing it since. It appeared as a database-and-map enabled website in 2006.I'm using a library or internet cafe. How do I prevent the next person from getting into Warm Showers and accessing all the addresses?
When using the site in a public place, please click "log out" at the bottom of the menu on the left hand side when you're done using the site.I'm using Firefox or Mozilla and the map doesn't work for me.
Firefox works great with the website unless you don't allow it to load images from sites other than the originating site. Please check under Tools->Options->Content Tab (or Tools->Options->Web Features for some versions). If you have checked "Load Images (From originating site only)" then the Warm Showers site can't work on your browser. Just uncheck it.I have an older computer and the map doesn't work for me.
If the map doesn't work for you, either because you have an older computer or a slow internet connection, you can still use the "List members on one page" feature on the main menu to list all the members in a country or state/province. If you want to install a more modern browser that will work well, try getting the free Firefox browser. It works quite nicely.The map is just too slow for me on my slow computer or internet connection
Yes, the map uses a lot of bandwidth and processing power, and if it's too painful to wait for it, you may want to try the List members on one page feature to list all the members in the geographic area you're looking at, or the Search for members feature to look for a specific city or town. The map is a nice feature, but it doesn't work well on very slow computers or internet connections.I found a bug or mistake in the site.
Please let us know about all problems you have with the site. We're working hard to improve it. Of course, we're just volunteers, so it can take some time to get things fixed. Please send a note to wsl@warmshowers.org with errors you encounter, problems you have, etc. Please do be patient with us. This is a big project and it continues to mature over time.I attempted to contact a host but was unsuccessful
We want to constantly improve the quality of this list! Please let us know at wsl@warmshowers.org if you encounter any invalid entries. We'll try to contact them and if we can't get through we'll remove their entry or at least make sure other people don't waste time with it.How does this work?
There are a number of technologies used here - The original information came from the text-based Warm Showers List that Roger has maintained for years. We used the Google Maps API to display users from the database. The site is developed using the wonderful open-source system called drupal. And location data comes from many places. Google's geocoding service is now in use, along with the fine service from geonames.org. The placename lookup on the map page is done with a database developed from geonames.org as well.How do I get off the list?
If you want to be off the list, you can just delete yourself. Go to "my account", click the "edit" tab, and at the bottom of the page is a "delete" button. Do it. Or you can just send us a note at wsl@warmshowers.org telling us your full name, address and username and that you'd like to be off the list.
What if I have suggestions or ideas about how the site should work?
Send them on! We want this to be a great resource! Send your thoughts to wsl@warmshowers.org. Also, please suggest your own entries to this FAQ, or leave a comment here.I haven't gotten a response to my email to Roger. Why hasn't my account been enabled yet? I still can't log in!
This site is free and unsponsored and has no staff. We're just two guys and sometimes overwhelmed. We promise that your e-mail will almost surely get read sooner or later. But please don't be offended if it is not acknowledged with a reply right away. If you haven't heard back for a few days, please re-send your mail. I signed up, but never got an email with my username and password
Please send a note to us at wsl@warmshowers.org. Probably the email went into your spam or bulk-mail folder, or was lost some other way.How can I help?
Roger is looking for country-coordinators to try to get the list up-to-date and contact people we haven't heard from lately. Check in with him if you're interested. If you know PHP or Javascript and would like to take on some of the php development work on the site, let Randy know. Other ideas? Bring them up!If you think that some of your best friends ignore everything about the Warm Showers List and that they should learn about it, then, by all means, teach them.