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+ WHAT IS AIRBNB? WHY DO I LOVE IT SO MUCH?
I am amazed at how many people don’t know about Airbnb. It is one of the best things I have ever discovered, and it is the reason why I will never stay in a stinky, expensive hotel room ever again.
Airbnb is a website that lists places (Internationally!) that regular people are willing to rent out to travelers who don’t want to pay outrageous hotel prices, or who want to stay in exotic places you wouldn’t normally be able stay. Heck. We have even looked up castles in Europe where you can stay!
A lot of people ask me, “Isn’t it scary?” or, “Isn’t it weird staying with people you don’t know?” And my answer is, no! Absolutely not. On the website you the option to search ‘shared rooms’, ‘private rooms’, or ‘entire place’. I’ve noticed that the majority of the people who rent out their entire places travel a lot for work and don’t want their place just sitting there collecting dust while they’re away.
Hosts and travelers can verify their identity through the Airbnb website. You also have to keep your reputation up because travelers can publicly review the hosts they stay with, and hosts can publicly review travelers who have stayed with them – So everything is out in the open.
On the website you can adjust the cost bar to whatever your budget is and it only shows places in that cost range. Other than that, it’s very similar to other vacation/hotel websites.
+ OUR LONG BEACH, CA GETAWAY
This is the second time we’ve used Airbnb, but I loved it way too much not to share. This is where we stayed in Long Beach, CA. It was almost half the price of anywhere close to the beach with all of it’s amenities. HALF! That means I get another vacation, right?
The host we stayed with had over 500 reviews about her place and is even an Airbnb “Super Host”. Check her out.
The last time we used Airbnb, we decided to just stay in someone’s spare bedroom that had a bathroom attached, but this time we decided it would be nice to have a place just to ourselves. So we just changed the search to “Entire Place” and voila!
The place we stayed at is a Eurostyle hotel that Coralie and Ed have fixed up to look so nice! They have made it look modern, and they make your stay comfortable. Since it’s a Eurostyle hotel, they have a variety of different rooms to choose from.
We just picked the cheapest room which had a sink in the bedroom and the shared bathrooms right down the hall. I was a little nervous about the shared bathrooms, but one was always open the whole time, and they were always really clean!
+ MY FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT OUR AIRBNB STAY:
- It’s 5 blocks from the ocean!! We walked there every time, which is convenient because you don’t have to pay for parking.
- They supply a free parking pass during your stay! And the parking lot is like 50 ft. away.
- The fridge and the microwave in the bedroom are nice, plus they let you use the kitchen down stairs whenever you need to.
- There is air conditioning in every bedroom. (Hallelujah)
- The coin op laundry is in the same room as the kitchen, so if you needed to, you can just throw in a load of laundry! We definitely used that.
- Von’s is 2 blocks away! This was great because it made it easier for us not to have to eat out for every meal. (We ate out about once a day.)
- They have quite a few bikes for you to just take whenever you want to go for a ride. The beach has two separate walking/running and bike paths, and the city is very bike friendly.
- There are a lot of good places to eat around town! We looked at online reviews, and most of the places have really great ratings. We loved it.
- Sometimes Coralie would leave cookies in the hallway! That won me over.
- We paid $78 a night for this room, and anywhere remotely close with the same amenities was in the $145 range (I looked it up). I’m not kidding when I say we paid half.