I should have added this as well to my earlier post. In Albuquerque, our Airbnb was about five miles north of Balloon Park, so the south breeze carried the balloons right over our house. In Michigan, our house was on the shore of Lake Huron. In Maine, our house was a block from a walking path that took one into the forest preserve.
We chose those locations, of course. But there were no hotels that offered those hidden amenities.
As a family of four (two kids) I cannot image ever going back to hotel rooms for vacations. A house or apartment is just so much more comfortable and amenable to how we like to hang out or do a movie night or anything like that. I’m not sure about the cooking comments, we eat out or grab take out same as we always do when traveling (and have more convenient cutlery options).
We’ve done this countless times, mostly in the US but also in Denmark, Austria, Italy and South Africa and every experience has been either good or fantastic. With a little bit of experience I think it’s pretty easy to weed out the hosts that are likely to have lousy rentals or be difficult to deal with by reading how they talk about the place, how they take pictures, and the reviews.
I used my Holiday Inn points instead to save buku bucks gang, but thanks for the info; note I’ll be at my sister’s place just across the highway most of the time.
It’s cheating to have a hotel next to somebody you’re visiting. 
OTOH, back in the day we bought a small place without any room for guests. Precisely so we wouldn’t be guilted into hosting anyone. Instead we paid to put them up at the snazzy hotel down the street. Cheaper for us on an annual basis and they had much better accomodations at still zero cost to them.
ETA: this post is much edited since @John_DiFool replied below.
This is my sister we’re talking about, who constantly either has other guests long-term or has filled her extra bedroom with whatever.
I had family members suggesting I rent or buy a two-bedroom place so I could host guests, but like you, I figure that it’s cheaper to put the guests in a hotel, even if I’m the one paying for it.
Yep. Guest rooms are great if your kids moved out, you’re an empty nester, and have not yet downsized like a smart person would’ve already done.
Other than that, guest rooms are a sign of being either extremely rich, or a total unimaginative chump.
A good friend moved to Hawaii for a three-year work assignment and intentionally rented a place with no extra space, if though the apartment was paid for.
Make sure you read the fine print onthe rules. AirBnB will not reimburse for closures due to hurricanes. VRBO does not have that stipulation but I booked a room in new Orleans under AirBnB (didnt know the policy) and after a hurricane most of NOLA was without elctricity so restaurants were closed, there would be no lights or electricty to cook food if i could have found a grocery store open or brought food with me for my stay. I wrote and siad I considered the room to be uninhabitable but the host disagreed with me. apparently NOLA in 90 degree heat with no electricity and no access to food was perfectly fine.
A hotel reservation further down the coast refunded everything with no problem.
A problem I ran into a few years ago is when I stayed in AirBnB that was a condo with an association. There were issues with the facilities, parking, etc, and I asked the front desk about it. They said they couldn’t help because I wasn’t the owner, and when I reached out to the owner she freaked out and told me never to contact the front desk.
Turns out the condo had a cap of 25% rentals, and they’re way over it, so AirBnB is prohibited in that building. Moreover the owner advertised the rental as having 2 parking spaces, when in fact it was allocated 1 numbered space, and our second car actually got booted at one point, and the owner refused to reimburse.
After our time was up, I made sure to let the condo association know that I’d been living there as a renter for 2 weeks, and also shared the AirBnB listing plus the emails showing that the owner directed us to keep things quiet. Normally I’d have been content to live and let live, but the parking boot and the owner’s indifference pissed me off to no end.
Long story short, I don’t AirBnB condos anymore, and I ask very pointed questions about parking.
Speaking from the condo management POV:
AirBnBs are the bane of condo associations. Most associations prohibit them, but the remedies to stop rogue owners (often investors) from running an AirBnB are too little and too late.
Some states and municipalities have tried to regulate AirBnBs, but many states are falling under the influence of big rental businesses who view any/all regulation as harmful to their profits. They couch it in terms of “ordinary homeowner freedom from government meddling” but what it really is is a free-fire zone to privatize profits and dump all the costs on the neighbors.
I personally would not rent an AirBnB in a condo complex without contacting the complex management separately to ask whether this is kosher.
In some touristy areas, companies are now building purpose-built condo complexes that are intended entirely to be bought by investors for use as AirBnBs / vacation homes. Everybody there knows what they’re getting into when they buy. I’ve AirBnb’ed in those with a clear conscience.
I personally would not rent an AirBnB in a condo complex. Full stop.
I’ve never used Airbnb, so I’m wondering; how would you know from looking at the listing that it’s in a condo complex?
I think many cities have started issuing permits too, and sometimes requiring listings to contain the permit information. There’s then usually an online database of permitted listings, e.g. the one for my town. Among other things, it requires a posting of a notice near the front door, with clear 24/7 contact information, and a copy sent to all the neighbors.
Chicago, too, requires Airbnb listings to contain a registration number: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/861
Of course, compliance and enforcement vary across localities. But it seems much more legit these days than it did 10 years ago, at least.
When travelling abroad, we always use Airbnb - we like our stay to be immersive and would much rather stay in a real neighborhood than a hotel in the “tourist district” - Airbnb is perfect for that. As with anything - Caveat Emptor - so I pay careful attention to reviews, generally tend to only go with superhosts, and I always do Google streetview reconnaissance when possible. We’ve never had a bad experience, just some occasional minor annoyances. But the stays have been cool and very memorable - A treehouse condo in Chiang Mai with a coffeehouse on the premises, a rooftop loft in the Coyoacán district of Mexico City, steps away from the artisanal markets, an apartment in Nice right by the train station (which we used often) and walking distance from the port/beach, and a converted shipping container house right by Meðalfellsvatn Lake and the mountains outside of Reykjavik are some that come to mind. We wouldn’t have had any of those experiences staying in a hotel, so I’ve been very happy overall with Airbnb.
When travelling domestically, we generally stick with hotels, since we are most likely travelling due to a sports tournament or something work-related.
Usually some combination of: pictures, reviews, the description, property type (you can filter by house/hotel/apartment/guesthouse).
This is actually one of the strong suits of Airbnb… it has pretty decent filters, so if you want a waterfront home with a hot tub for eight people and two pets, you can find that. If you want a room in a shared apartment in the middle of downtown with free parking, you can find that.
Exactly. It is superb for finding those unique, fun experiences. One place we stayed had a broken hot tub, but they had some lava tubes on the property and the owner comped us a free cave tour instead… it’s the kind of thing that a random chain hotel wouldn’t be able to do.
Those “experience” stays are where Airbnb shines the brightest, IMO.
I just logged into the Airbnb website. I see several listings that say ‘Condo in downtown (city)’, or ‘Apartment in (city)’. If it’s a house, it says ‘Home in (city)’.
There are also pictures. Generally, if it’s a house, the exterior is shown.
Probably not 100% reliable, but a pretty good start.
(Just to add to the reply by @Reply)
unless that were universal; how would a renter know that the lack of one means anything? Zip codes don’t always match municipal lines so even though the post office name is Town A you’re really staying in Town B but I still don’t want to have to research municipal codes before staying somewhere.
The downside is they frequently don’t work for the late arriver. There’s typically someone at a hotel desk 24x7 but I’ve not booked some B&B’s because I can’t arrive there after 9 or 10pm. That doesn’t work for me in my typical leave after work, & dinner, & drive x hours to get there model.
…& the airbnb competitor that begins with V can suck a back of dicks. I have never been on their website, nor even typed their name out (see previous sentence); yet the percentage of ads I see for them while private browsing, meaning cookies are cleared out when I close out (& yes, that’s a separate browser that’s not logged in anywhere in another window.
Thanks for the reply but are some Airbnb listings for actual hotels?