Other states, other lives, other souls

When you travel, where do you like to lodge?  Hotel, motel, Bed and Breakfast, or Airbnb/VRBO?  Since they came into existence we have stayed in quite a few Airbnb’s.  I also have 3 friends who run Airbnb’s; two in Minneapolis and one in Brooklyn. They can be much more profitable than a straight rental.  I have stayed in them in Louisiana, Tennessee, California, Arkansas, Canada, Argentina, New Zealand, and Hawaii. Here’s what most people think they have to offer:

• Locations in out of the way places, where there may not be hotels
• Locations in quieter residential areas of a city vs. downtown
• Good prices
• Economical lodging for a family, including living room, kitchen, laundry
• Kitchens, if you like to cook some of your meals while traveling
• Greater privacy than hotels.

There are other aspects of Airbnb’s that may or may not be deal-breakers, depending on your personality and needs.

• Trickier to locate precisely when shopping on the website
• Unexpected hassles
• Harder to reserve on the fly than hotels/motels
• Accommodations that don’t always match the glossy pictures
• Hosts who are too present, not present enough, quirky, lonely, who go out of their way, are super chatty or who serve as entrées into a new culture or subculture.
• Décor that ranges from super kitschy to lovely to squalid

You can always find fabulous lodging if you pay a premium price. But I’d rather take my chances, stay out of downtowns, and make my travel dollar go farther.

The list that follows emphasizes the crap-shoot aspect of Airbnb’s that I find charming, along with the more universally positive qualities in the first list. Our experiences have run the gamut from poisonous, roomy, glamorous, sketchy, comfy, perfectly-situated, claustrophobic, and quaint. Only once have I had a truly negative experience. Airbnb’s meet one of my criteria for great travel: “expect the unexpected.”

Argentina:  Lovely large apartment for our family of 4 in a great walking neighborhood of Buenos Aires. BUT, they wanted cash only, and lots of it, as soon as we arrived in the country, which took a trip down the street to the money changers after dark.

Arkansas:  Kitschy-themed bedrooms in a large ranch style home near Hot Springs National Park, with a hostess whose accent was a dead ringer for Bill Clinton.

California: Roomy A-frame overlooking the Pacific in the Emerald Triangle; perfect for a quiet reunion of five old friends. The advertised zip line turned out to be preschool sized, but the hot tub was perfect for naked outdoor deep conversation.

Canada: A “garden” level apartment in a condo complex in Montreal we grabbed on the fly while waiting for my son’s family’s new apartment to come available. The dishwasher door came crashing down unexpectedly and regularly; the glamorous furnishings in the picture looked more like the foyer of a homeless shelter in real life, and we were mildly poisoned by methane gas seeping out of the shower drain.

Kauai, Hawaii: An Airbnb within a “beachfront” condo complex. Beautiful, affordable, and large. A place to eat poké as often as possible that we normally landlocked types bought from the grocery store.  However, getting to the beach required a dare-devil hike down a cliff and west to a secluded beach that seemed lovely at first, since it was low tide.  We freaked when we noticed that ours was the only way out from the beach as the tide rolled in and the rest of it was surrounded by 50 foot straight-up cliffs. Signs on many of the beaches, including this one, warned of dangerous undertows.

Louisiana: 

1. New Orleans: I picked a place away from the madness, near Lake Ponchartrain. It advertised a room with access to a swimming pool.  Cozy, to say the least.  Our small bedroom was right next to the main hosts’ bedroom.  Very claustrophobic, so we were ready to bail after the first night.  However, we warmed up to the whole situation, after our friendly native NOLA hostess gave us a thorough tour by car of New Orleans, so we were set to bike around for the next three days.  Also a great dip into New Orleans middle class culture. The dip into the tiny pool wasn’t bad either. We left with a very unusual souvenir. The ugly styrofoam cup on the right was 32 oz,. (1 quart) before it was taken in a commercial sub 3200 meters (almost two miles) below in the ocean. You can see how small it became under intense pressure in comparison to our small remote. Our host used to map undersea areas as a nautical engineer and was very friendly, even while recovering from major back surgery. I wouldn’t recommend passionate lovemaking in this one though.
2. Lafayette: Lafayette is Cajun music central. We booked the Tower Room in an old house, accessed by an external stairway. Nice and roomy, except for one thing. My husband said, “Hey, there’s no bathroom in here.” Well, there was.  The toilet was inside an alcove next to the fireplace that was just the right size for Tyrion Lannister . Luckily we are not very big people. On the other hand, our host, a genuine Cajun from way back, serenaded us at happy hour with his Cajun accordion and songs, while we drank peach flavored sweet tea with vodka (or whiskey—our recollections differ).  His young son sat on his lap while he played and sang, in some kind of fugue state. Very sweet.  He directed us to great places too, that we wouldn’t have found in the tourist guides.

New Zealand: This place was at the top of a small mountain near the spot in Adelsman National Park where we would take a boat out into the Sound to be dropped off at a campground to walk back the three days to our rental car.  We got off the ferry from the North Island and immediately drove toward the National Park towards the end of the day.  A long drive.  One thing we hadn’t reckoned on:  the lack of GPS and, often, cell phone coverage as we headed up the mountain toward the Airbnb near the top.  We had written directions that we misunderstood as the sun set in the west.  Occasionally we would get bars and call the host to help us reorient.  After two calls, we finally exited at the right turnoff and drove up to quite a lovely spot.  Lucky for us, we had picked a spot at a high altitude and above the boat launch. What happened that night was a gargantuan storm which closed the roads into the spot we were heading to.  But since we were already there, we were able to drive down in the morning, park, and jump on the small motor boat.  A very bumpy ride after the storm, but we got there and had a lovely dry walk back.

Tennessee: In Memphis we booked the back half of a house, with kitchen, bedroom and small living room. This was a lock box situation with no host in sight.  I couldn’t find the text message with the code, so I texted her again while we waited outside the door for response.  It was dark and seemed to be a bit sketchy residential neighborhood.  Text received, door opened and safe harbor for the night, except for the natural gas smell in the morning. We texted her again and she promptly had it fixed so when we returned after biking around Memphis that evening, no more smell.  Nice safe parking for our kayak topped car. Very quiet. Near an upandcoming fun semi-urban neighborhood with a terrific one-off bookstore and neighborhood bar.

I hope these anecdotes have conveyed why we continue to use Airbnb when we can on our vacation adventures.  If you want complete predictability and no hassle, then, by all means, book a hotel. If you want quaint and a nice breakfast, find a Bed and Breakfast—and pay the tariff for quaint.  If you have a spirit of adventure or want to jump into the culture of wherever you are, consider Airbnb.