Have you heard of Air BNB? If you love House Hunters on HGTV, there’s a good chance you’ll jump at the chance to try this unique accommodation option while traveling. AirBNB is this online network of people who offer up their homes for rental to visitors while they are vacationing. We first heard of this service when some friends who lived in NYC told us about how they would supplement their income by posting their home for rental on the site. Anyone in any city in the world can offer up their abode for a price they deem acceptable. As you can imagine, the larger cities have quite a few housing options available and provide a fun alternative to a traditional hotel.
When Tim and I travel, we run through the “touristy” stuff rather quickly and try to find the local hotspots. Our goal when traveling to most cities is to experience what it would feel like to live in that place. Also, we love to be artisically inspired and try to find as much design inspiration as possible. Anyway, we felt like Air Bnb could be a great option for us because you not only get to feel like you live there, but you also get to experience the design and architecture of homes in the region. While in Paris, we opted to stay in two different homes- partly for convieniecne (one was closer to the trade show) and partly so we could see and experience two different homes!
Our AirBnb experiece as a whole was 1/2 good, 1/2 not so good. I thought it could be weird staying in someone elses home but when looking at pictures online, we chose spaces that seemed clean and uncluttered. The first home we stayed in was perfect. The homeowner was a breeze to coordinate with and the space was just what we expected. The second home we stayed in however did not provide such a positive experience. The owner was difficult to work with and the space was not as clean as the pictures suggested. We weren’t living in filth by any means, but it was enough to make me uncomfortable. Because of our two contrasting experiences, I am not sure if we will use the service as renters again or not. But we may try being a renter! Not that there are a lot of people traveling to Tulsa for vacation. . . but you never know! 🙂
Although the second home was less than ideal, Air BNB was a great way to experience Paris as more of a local rather than a tourist and I enjoyed that opportunity.
What do you think? Would you ever try this service?
I have used Airbnb and my experience has been good, but I have heard the 1/2 & 1/2 from other people.
Cool place, though the lack of a railing on the loft would’ve made me nervous. Probably comes from working in the safety arena though.
We just used airbnb in Europe for our two week trip through Italy. We had great experiences all around! I definitely valued the information in the “reviews” section for each place. Even if there were pretty pictures of the place, if there weren’t glorious reviews of the host and location, it wasn’t an option.
I was trying the convince T to try a bnb experience for our european vacation and he thoughtfully pointed out that each culture has their own standard of acceptability for timeliness/cleanliness/friendliness. One analogy would be to compare differences in expectations of lodging in Tulsa vs LA (we are sooo spoiled in the midwest!). And I’m sure that there are people who are traveling to spend time with family or reunions or the like who would prefer a more intimate experience than the closest best western. Sometimes the hotels in Tulsa are completely booked for strange reasons (e.g. multiple conference/rodeos in town) – I say go for it!