On the surface, the website globalfreeloaders.com is a godsend for those who like to travel a lot and meet interesting people but find that a lack of cash restricts their ambitions, writes Donal Ruane.

Established by veteran traveller Adam Staines, the site works on a reciprocal basis, whereby you allow a complete stranger to stay in your home for a night or two as they pass through your city, and in return, you can then stay with a complete stranger in whatever city you may find yourself travelling to further down the line.

Both parties leave feedback on the site, commenting on their experience as host or freeloader, and all registered users can access this information to verify each other's bona fides.

Idiot that I am, I decided to sign up to globalfreeloaders.com and see who'd come banging on my door.

A mere two days after logging the details of my humble abode, offering prospective guests the use of a sleeping bag and sofa, I received an e-mail from Anna Ptaszynska, a 31-year-old Polish woman living in London, who asked if she could stay with me as she started her whistle-stop tour of Ireland. Eager to break my duck, I quickly acquiesced to her request and then awaited her arrival with increasing trepidation and regret.

Shortly before noon on the appointed day the doorbell rang. I opened the door and knew straight away I had made a terrible mistake. Stoically, I welcomed Anna and boiled the kettle. Awkward smalltalk ensued as each of us sought to get a measure of the other. I knew immediately that I was set for a tumultuous few days. It's a facility I have: I just know pretty quickly if a situation is to my liking or not. Anna seemed pleasant, but I knew we had nothing in common and I would find it hard to get along with her socially without making a considerable effort. She was eager to get cracking, exploring all Dublin had to offer, so I dropped her down to Terenure village to show her the bus stop and left her to it.

That evening passed uneventfully enough, but the following morning I awoke with more trepidation. Belly rumbling, I was keen to sate my appetite but also a little concerned that I should be expected to serve up breakfast for my guest.

Abhorrent of culinary effort and excess as I am, I have over the years developed a schedule of operations which delivers me a hearty platter of food fit for a builder with the minimum of fuss. The one failing of this finely tuned system is that it is simply not scalable: no accommodations can be made for guests, especially those of a freeloading nature.

Unsure of what way to play it, I was both relieved and a little startled to arrive downstairs and find Anna seated at the table tucking into scones and drinking coffee. (Her scones, my coffee.)

After availing of my broadband internet connection to correspond with her flatmate back in London, Anna announced that she was keen to get straight into town to the Chester Beatty library in Dublin Castle. Magnanimously, I offered to drop her into the city centre.

On the way in, I asked her about her itinerary, and was amazed at all she hoped to cram in to her eight days in Ireland. I politely suggested a revised schedule, outlining how little Cork had to offer in the way of cultural attractions.

She didn't seem to take my advice in the manner it was offered though, so I shut up, and our journey continued in silence.

Anna returned that evening around six and quickly knocked me for six, inquiring about how one makes colcannon. Aghast at the prospect of cabbage being cooked on the premises, I shrugged nonchalantly, gesturing toward my pristine cooker as evidence of my lack of culinary activity. Undeterred, she promptly declared that she'd "check the internet" for the recipe.

Like a stranger in my own home, I silently ceded control of the computer and repaired to the front room to calm down with my pan pipes CD. Just as well too, because 10 minutes later Anna knocked me for 12, asking if she could stay an extra night! So distraught was I at the prospect of my stint as a host continuing for 24 hours longer than expected, my normally astonishing powers of fabrication deserted me and I mumbled "yeah, no problem".

An hour or so later, after opening a few windows to get rid of the smell of cabbage in the kitchen and making polite smalltalk for a few minutes, I went to bed unusually early and read my book. (Anthony Bourdain's Bone in the Throat, which was full of handy pointers on how to garrotte somebody and dispose of their body in an efficient manner.) I slept on the next morning, waiting until I heard the front door close before I got up.

Mercifully, it was nearly seven by the time Anna returned. After microwaving the remains of her colcannon and clearing up her dishes, she sat at the computer for an hour. Once again I made reference to her overly ambitious itinerary, only to be met with a stony resilience. Obviously her Lonely Planet guidebook was a more trustworthy source of information than a mere native, so I left it at that and bade her good night.

The following morning, I woke to the joyous sounds of birds singing in the trees, ushering springtime in and Anna out. Shortly after seven, after one final flurry of e-mail correspondence, she was out the door and off on her travels.

Fair enough, she said thanks. No bottle of wine or basket of fruit on the kitchen table though, which I thought was bad form, to be honest with you. I breathed deeply, savoured the satisfaction of having the place to myself again and went back to bed.

A few weeks later, I was in Madrid to see what the other side of the coin was like. A young lady by the name of Lizette Brenes had kindly agreed to let me stay with her the night before my return flight home. She had e-mailed me her address but suggested I call in advance of my arrival so she could brief her flatmates on the situation and tell them I was a friend of friend, lest they be a little freaked out by the thoughts of a complete stranger knocking on the door looking for a bed for the night.

Just after eight I rang her flat from Atocha train station and a young lady answered. My Spanish is not what I would like it to be, so after "Hola" I was stumped. Clearly this was not Lizette. I hung up, checked the number and dialled again. The same thing. I waited for nearly an hour and tried again.

No luck, no Lizette. I had to leave quite early the following morning and so didn't want to just arrive unannounced at her door, annex the sofa for the night and then leave before breakfast, so I decided to abandon the freeloading thing and looked for alternative accommodation. Not far from the train station I located a few hostels and found a room for the night. At only €18 it was decidedly lacking in creature comforts, but at that time of night I was left with precious few options.

In an effort to dispel the smell of vagrancy from the room, I opened the bottle of Jameson's I had bought as a thank you for my host, had a few nips and tried to get some sleep. Not quite how I expected to spend my last night in Madrid.

www.globalfreeloaders.com. Donal Ruane's latest book, I'm Irish, Get Me Out of Here, is published by Gill & Macmillan