wie sucht ihr unterwegs couchsurfing(...) mitglieder zum übernachten?

Du musst dich ja nicht erst einen Tag vorher ankuendigen. Wenn du schon weisst, an welchem Tag du ankommst, schreib einfach ne Woche vorher ein paar Leute an.
Wenn du es nicht weisst, schreib denen, dass du nicht genau weisst wann du ankommst, und ob es ok waere, wenn du dich 1-2 Tage vorher per SMS meldest. Fuer viele Couchsurfer ist das ok. Internet bekommst du ja in jeder groesseren Stadt, oder eben bei deinen Hosts.

Nur fuer die Hygiene ein Hostel zu suchen ist meines erachtens uebertrieben. Ein Campingplatz ist viel billiger und hat auch Duschen, etc.

For hygiene, in some countries you can take a shower in petrol stations, for example on the motorway petrol stations in Germany and in petrol stations in Poland, and with little doubt in several other countries. As for hygiene, I've experienced that when I'm travelling and staying over in tent or by being most of the time outdoor, the need for a shower is considerably less. Also, if I ever feel that I smell bad, the smell usually disappears sitting by campfire in the evening. Washing clothes in my opinion is not needed more than once per two or three weeks (and I'm not travelling any longer than that due to work responsibilities). It's better that your clothes and bag smell like they are smoked, than that they stink... any driver understands :D

For my holidays I usually start to look for hosts six weeks or so in advance. I'm not travelling all the time, I'll explore an area, so often I have a couple of days travelling out and acouple of days travelling back. Eg last winter I did 27.12 's-Hertogenbosch(NL) to Jelenia Gora(PL), 29.12 Jelenia Gora(PL) to Kezmarok(SK) and stayed in the region till 11.01 Slovak Paradise(SK) to Bratislava(SK), 12.01 Bratislava(SK) to Wurzburg(D), 13.01 Wurzburg(D) to Eindhoven(NL), 14.01 Eindhoven(NL) to 's-Hertogenbosch(NL) and the same day 's-Hertogenbosch(NL) to Maastricht(NL). I had arranged most of the hosts including family in the Netherlands :) in advance. Stayed with friends in Jelenia Gora. For Bratislava I didn't arrange, but my last host in Slovak Paradise area called a friend so I could stay in Bratislava the next day.

If you're going to travel in the future to similar areas (which you may not be aware of now, that you will) you'll see, that you can still find your hosts as friends :)... or if you visit bigger CS-meetings or parties (www.happy-traveller.de...) you can make more hosting friendly friends!

Have nice travels!