In a recent post I mentioned that when I went to San Diego for my first date in seven years, I decided to book a place to stay through airBnB.
airBnB is a site where you can book a room in someone’s home or apartment while you’re traveling. What’s great about it is, you can often find a place to stay at a much more affordable price than if you were to stay a hotel. Especially if you’re looking to stay in nicer areas or cities where rooms are crazy expensive (I’m looking at you, New York).
The caveat, of course, is that you’re staying with a stranger.
…I can hear someone’s mental tires screeching as I type.
I know that it might sound crazy to some people. But what got me over that hurdle was a couple of things. 1. I know more than one friend personally who has used airBnB or a site like it (like couch surfing) and recommended it and 2. The reviews.
I’m not saying that reviews and recommendations are a failsafe, not at all. But, since the site allows you to not only post reviews of the people that you stay with, but that they get to review those who stay with them, it made me feel safer. To me, the more reviews a place has, and the more they also know they’re being reviewed, the better. So I went through the site and carefully read through dozens of them.
I also purposely chose to stay with a woman and her family. I would be open to staying with a woman who lives alone, but most likely wouldn’t ever stay with a single man. It’s not to say that men are unsafe and women are. I just figure that if I had to, my chances of getting out of a bad situation with a woman at least physically, would be better than if I were staying with a dude. But that’s just me. You know, worst case scenario.
So I booked my stay in San Diego, right near the beach. Since it was my first time on the site, I created a profile, uploaded a photo, and looked around for a bit. It didn’t take me very long to decide where I wanted to stay– this one room looked nice, had tons of great reviews, was in my price range, and the owner’s profile didn’t bring up any red flags. So I sent her a message explaining why I wanted to stay with her and also put in a blurb as to why I didn’t have any reviews yet. As much as I didn’t want to stay with a crazy person, I figured she would also appreciate knowing that I wasn’t one either, so I sent her links to both my site and blog so she could check them out.
It didn’t take very long for her to respond and accept my reservation request (you’re not confirmed until you get accepted by the homeowner). We exchanged a couple more emails about logistics, and that was it!
When the day came that I arrived in San Diego, the homeowner actually had told me in advance that she might not be home when I got there, so she left me with instructions on how to get into my room. The awesome thing was, my ‘room’ was actually an entire separate studio from the rest of the house!
The outside was so pretty and had ivy growing all over, and right outside of the studio was a pretty garden.
Once inside, I was really taken aback by how nice and clean everything was. There were bright colors, lots of white (I love white), light pouring into the room from the windows, and art and vibrant travel-related photographs on the walls.
I went over to one of the tables and there was even a long list of places to eat. Everywhere that was suggested were places that I would totally try. I loved that we had similar tastes in food.
There was also a little staircase that led up to the bathroom, which was on the small side, but more than enough for me. More importantly, it was super clean and there were even lots of towels available to use.
The bed was nice and big, and super comfy. I texted my friend the first morning after I slept in that I hadn’t slept that well in months. It was awesome.
So pretty! I loved all of the pillows, colors, and patterns.
That same morning I got up, no lie, to the sound of birds singing. Seriously.
I just hung out in bed for a while staring at the pretty light.
I had also had the chance to meet the homeowner the night before (she was super nice) so I knew that I could go up to the roof. It was so pretty and you could see the ocean off in the distance, with chairs available to lean back into. I tried to take a photo, which does no justice to anything or anyone (hello telephone pole and my 8:00am non-made up face).
The owner was nice enough to even have bikes available that you could use with locks to lock them up, but I had hurt my knees jump roping (don’t ask) so I opted to just walk around. There were lots of shops, bars, and restaurants around and everything was really accessible. I even made it down to the beach and saw one of the prettiest sunsets I’ve ever seen in my life.
Random side note, speaking of prettiest things I’ve ever seen in my life– I don’t know what they put in the water, but the men in Pacific Beach (where I stayed) are freaking incredibly good looking! I was practically falling out of my chair with how many there were everywhere. This is coming from someone who lived in LA, and specifically Santa Monica, where being fit is basically a requirement, for years. The dudes of Pacific Beach must just surf, tan, and work out all day long, because… yeah. Just ridiculous.
Aaaaanyway. Overall my stay through airBnB was amazing, and so much more than I could have ever expected. The studio was beautiful, I felt safe the entire time, and my host was more than awesome. At one point she even offered to let me pick lemons off of her lemon tree. How nice is that?!
Super cute treehouse in the back yard.
I know that I’m really lucky to have had such a great first experience staying with a stranger, and I can say that if I get the chance, I’d definitely try it again. With hotels you usually get a different variation of basically the same hotel room no matter where you go. But with a site like airBnB, you can never know for sure quite exactly what to expect. Then again, you could also argue that’s half the fun of it.
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Have you ever tried airBnB? Would you ever try it?
