Airbnb Adventure

Last summer, I got this insane idea to rent our house out on Airbnb.com.  We had stayed in airbnb's and loved the experience, and I just thought it would be a hoot to provide that experience to someone else.  It was.  We got the house all ready and put pictures on the airbnb website.  HERE'S THE LINK, unless I've put it on snooze when you read this.

You won't be surprised to find out that I absolutely loved the experience of being an airbnb host.  I just love the whole idea of hospitality.  I loved providing the experience for people to stay in a comfortable place.  I loved seeing their reaction to the house, meeting them, imagining how much fun they were having at our house, and reading their glowing reviews afterward.  We hosted maybe 9 or 10 families or groups, most Chinese.

The downsides were first, that I wasn't invited to tag along on the vacations.  I wanted the guests to ask me questions about tourism in the area, but most didn't.  I would have picked them up at the airport or taken them to see things, but they all had their own plans.  Then there was the question of where we would stay when our house was rented out.  Our initial idea was to go on vacation whenever we rented out the house, but that doesn't always work out in real life.  Often, we wanted to save our airbnb money to use for future travel.  And a lot of our stays were only one or two nights, so it was easier to just stay at my parents' house or camp out at the violin shop/ Scott's office.  Sometimes the kids loved those adventures, and sometimes they were tired of it.  Fortunately, Golda and Ruby were in Europe during most of the summer, because they didn't quite see the adventure in camping out at the violin shop like the younger kids did.

One thing that was both good and bad was the cleaning and preparation.  It took forever, even if we had just rented it out and everything was spotless, I'd still have to spend 4 hours washing and changing sheets for the next guests.  Every single inch of every wall, floor and stick of furniture had to be impeccable.  If there was one single hair on a bathroom floor, that could get you a bad review, and you don't want that.  I loved this cleaning process, but also, I had kids and things to do, so it was tricky to block out enough time for the cleaning.  But then, when the guests left, our house would be SO CLEAN.  The kids were down to a bare minimum of possessions, and I loved it.  I hate stuff, and I relished the house being as bare as it's ever been, from being completely deep cleaned every few days, from base boards to ceilings, including drawers, showers, floors, sheets, everything.  All the cupboards and drawers were clean and organized, and actually empty for the most part, unless they were stocked with clean towels and sheets.  Like I said, heavenly.  Except for the two closets that we locked, with our personal stuff inside.  Those got messy!

All of our guests, without exception, were friendly and wonderful.  This family was the only one that fulfilled my desire for more interaction.  It was 3 couples, 3 kids and a photographer, some Chinese, some Chinese-American.  They had a baby, and then they had two boys.  They invited our kids to go to dinner with them so that their kids could get the "American Experience."  My kids, skeptical of the whole airbnb thing anyway, probably would have died if I'd pawned them off of this boisterous family and their photog.  So I invited their kids to hang out with us, doing kid stuff.  We went to David and Marilyn's and gathered up some of their kids to go to the new Maverik gas station.  It doesn't get any more American than that!  The kids played in the DeBrys' yard, then we went to Cherry Hill for mini golf and Fiiz for drinks.  It was chaotic and great.  The Chinese kids spoke a little English, and the DeBrys are in Chinese immersion, so there was some verbal communication, but kids don't really need it.  So that was a fun airbnb experience.

Mennonite family we didn't get to meet.
They stayed while we were in California.  Loved them!

I love this one from a little boy who was travelling with a big group of his relatives. I took these pictures a long time ago, and I should have taken a pic of all the reviews.  They were all positive and fun, and it was a highlight for us to read what each group had written after they left.  The main reason we did the airbnb host thing was that other people had done it, and we challenged ourselves to do it, too.  We wanted to tap into the tourism industry that streams through our state, unnoticed by the inhabitants.  We wanted to feel the excitement of people traveling, without leaving home.  We wanted an international connection.  And I, personally, wanted to make some of these families' journeys more comfortable, affordable and fun.  I wanted to share our resources with them, and at the same time, make some travel money.  We did all of that, and we had an exciting experience.  That said, I don't foresee us opening our airbnb doors again in the near future.  We have friends coming this summer, and we don't want them to have to camp out at the violin shop!