301–310 of 573 posts
I'm a digital nomad. One luggage, no permanent home, been fifteen years. I used to use AirBnB all the time. They gradually become more and more, well, "large company". I used to still look at AirBnB (until very recently, when one of the founders joined DOGE), but I saw that their fee continually rose over time, and became like 10% or 15%, and there's in many places (Paris, Amsterdam, New York, London...) no meaningfu…
What do you use instead?
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> There's also...apartment hotels! They're not nearly as common as Airbnb apartments in most countries. I also trust Airbnb listings and reviews more than what I find on most booking sites.
I don't trust AirBnb reviews much at all. When I've found the same place on AirBnb and Booking, the difference was always clear: AirBnb has only glowing reviews with nothing wrong at all, while Booking reviews were much more realistic with also some critical but fair observations included.
Maybe some way to secretly write problems, and get next guests to agree/disagree with each concern?
Repeatable patterns of problems (rather than one-off bad luck) are what I'm most interested in avoiding.
I find booking.com has been more reliable, and less risks of unexpected costs. AirBnB is usually way less professional.
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You can get the same experience with VRBO. People list in both usually. AirBNB hasn’t cornered the market. Plus, VRBO or sites like VacationRentals pre dated AirBNB
They actually don't list on both usually. Go lookup the data before you start making statements like that. In fact just go punch this into Google: "how much of airbnb inventory is unique?"
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Hotels also provide tons of variation in quality. Just look up hotels in, say, Bangkok or Ho Chi Minh City where the options are much more than just the typical Western chains. Or compare the many non-chain "motels" in North America. I think what you mean is "chains" tend to be pretty consistent. Which, yeah, that's always been the main value prop of a chain. You go to McDonald's in Tunisia and you have a pretty good…
Chains consistency kills half the fun of travelling the world.
Oh, the disconnect. Your average person rarely hires services like this, maybe a handful of times over a lifetime.
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I think the people who say hotels are better than AirBnb aren't traveling with kids. Having an actual kitchen when you travel with kids is great. Having actual separate bedrooms so we don't have to go to sleep at 8pm when the kids go to sleep is great. Being able to do laundry without tracking down a laundromat or pay exorbitant hotel prices is great. Having a living room or similar area with at least a few square me…
There are plenty of hotels where you can get multiple rooms and a washing machine. When traveling with kids, one big advantage of hotels is predictability. The last thing I want to do when I'm pulling in after a long flight an hour past the kids' bedtime is to deal with potentially dealbreaking problems with the place. In a hotel, they generally have maintenance on staff and extra rooms to switch into in case of prob…
Airbnb made the same mistake Google did: They screwed up their core service. I used to be a steady ABB customer but now hotels are almost always cheaper, offer better service, and are more predictable. Not to mention that hotel websites are typically easier to navigate and contain a lot less React-sludge that makes every click take forever to respond.
I disagree. In the long run there was never a way for individual hosts to compete with hotels on price. Hotels have economy of scale so of course they are going to be better bang for the buck in places where both are options. I think airbnb is still the better option in many situations - such as when you are willing to pay a premium to be in nature or you going on vacation with 6+ people. I don't really see how bette…
Maybe I'm in the minority but I've generally had very good -- or at least, "good as I expected" -- experiences at AirBnbs, even recently. Sometimes I've stayed with rich friends who book nice places, and the experience is, as expected, very nice. Many other times I have stayed at bottom-of-the-barrel places, which were, as expected, bottom of the barrel flophouses. But tolerably so, and true to the advertisement (fun…
I think the people who say hotels are better than AirBnb aren't traveling with kids. Having an actual kitchen when you travel with kids is great. Having actual separate bedrooms so we don't have to go to sleep at 8pm when the kids go to sleep is great. Being able to do laundry without tracking down a laundromat or pay exorbitant hotel prices is great. Having a living room or similar area with at least a few square me…
Just as much as many parents think having had kids is one of the proudest decisions (or happiest accidents) they have made, I think not having them is one of my best decisions, travelling is one of my many reasons for that, and I find the assumption from some parents that we should bend around their choice is a little presumptuous.
Furthermore, ignoring various other definitions of better, hotels are sometimes better value (or, at least, just less expensive) then AirBnBs these days, unless you are lucky, and inexpensive/value-for-money seems to be a very important factor for parents that I know.
Having said that I still use AirBnB sometimes, it just certainly isn't my only/preferred option as it was for a time.
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Chains consistency kills half the fun of travelling the world.
Kids enforce a filter on what sort of fun you look for. Without kids, the bottom tenth percentile hotel experiences is often a few hours of bad sleep before escaping in the morning. With them, it's hours of tantrums, desperate searches for acceptable food or sleeping arrangements, and worrying for days afterwards about the effects of smoke, mold, dust etc on their health.
I mean, that one is on you. It is possible to go on vacation even camping with kids without having anxiety attack over everything.
Also, while some kids are difficult and kids are slow and certainly limit you, hours of tantrumps every holiday and impossibility to eat are not normal.
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There are plenty of hotels where you can get multiple rooms and a washing machine. When traveling with kids, one big advantage of hotels is predictability. The last thing I want to do when I'm pulling in after a long flight an hour past the kids' bedtime is to deal with potentially dealbreaking problems with the place. In a hotel, they generally have maintenance on staff and extra rooms to switch into in case of prob…
I have never stayed in a hotel room that had a washing machine.