While planning a trip to another country, I was happy to see that Craigslist still had personals ads in other countries. They had shut down the personals section in the United States around six weeks ago, in response to legislation here. Five days ago, I took a look and contacted a few guys in anticipation of meeting them when I arrived in town, but when I looked this morning, the entire section had disappeared.

After doing some research, I was unable to find personals sections in any country. Every country I checked in Europe and in Central American and South America had the same disappointing result…no more personals ads. I tried to change my VPN settings to place my IP address in various foreign locales—Netherlands, Brazil, London—but the results were always the same, so it appears that this is a true worldwide change on the part of the people who run Craigslist, and not simply IP blocking/filtering by country.

At various times, I have found Craigslist personals to be: frustrating, horrifying, interesting, laughable, and occasionally useful. Despite the mixed opinion, I am sad to see it go, especially since it was one of the more useful ways to make connections while traveling.