Tag: Airbnb guest

Road trip Tip: Read advice columns

Photo by Marta Wave on Pexels.com

The fall is the perfect time for road trips. Something about the leaves and the air just enhances that wanderlust craving. And with people about to hop on the road to grandma’s house for the holidays, there will be a lot of road travel over the next few weeks.

For me, hopping around to different Airbnb’s can easily be hours on the road. Music is a great distraction but sometimes it just doesn’t fit the bill. My boyfriend and I are together ALL. THE. TIME. and it feels like we’ve covered every discussion topic known to man. So when we’re riding along, and we get tired of music, that’s when we read advice columns.

I know, I know. Ummm what!??! But forreal. We read them, and we discuss our take on each situation. And honestly, it’s a wonderful way to get to know more about your partner without being judgmental.

Here’s what we do. We set up the hypothetical situation using the advice seeker’s information and then we fill in our assumptions based on the unknowns. Then we sliced and dice every sentence, debate our viewpoint, and sprinkle in our past experiences, our boundaries, our hopes, etc. It’s such an interesting and entertaining way to see what we agree on, where we differ and why.

There are so many times I’ve said “wow, I can see how that is something I’ve done and it seems horrible,” or “I was once in a situation similar to this and this is what I did”.

There are things about our pasts that we didn’t know about each other and may not have had a reason to even bring up. But when we’re reading advice columns, it jogs our memory and sheds light on the situation we’re discussing.

Our favorite columns are Dear Prudence and The Moneyist. Dear Prudence is a good way to dive into some social, relationship, and family topics, while The Moneyist helps to delve into your thoughts about finances, investing, budgeting, etc.—all things that are extremely important in relationships. You may not realize that your significant other had a specific view about money, or that they were brought up thinking certain things about home life or vacation or work life…so many things are brought to light just by reading these columns!

Reading advice columns and using them as prompts for discussions actually may even help you hammer out some compromises about situations that haven’t even occurred. Knowing how you will address a situation before it even arises*could* help eliminate future headaches down the road. It may not help at all but you never know…it could.

Among our many outcomes, we’ve agreed that rescue is the way to go for pets, that we’ll never co-sign for anything for anyone ever, and that we’ll try our best to put kids in their own bed as soon as possible. Sounds random, I know…lol…but they were all the result of conversations we had after reading advice columns.

Why don’t you give it a try? Here’ a scenario from Dear Prudence. Chat about it with your significant other and see what you guys think!

Dear Prudence, My cousin’s daughter is getting married in November. We’re not particularly close, and I don’t believe I would have been invited if this were a formal, in-person wedding. Due to the current pandemic, however, the entire event is occurring on-line and the guest list appears to number in the thousands. The happy couple have published an extensive gift registry, with the cheapest items starting at about $200, and have sent a series of mass emails expressing their excitement that we’ll all get to share on their special day, with glossy images of their lives together. I have to confess that I feel a little mean-spirited about the whole affair, as this feels more like an aggressive marketing campaign to maximize the return on investment than a family celebration. Is there a polite way to quietly disengage? Would it be rude to not send a gift (and to RSVP that I can’t make it)? My cousin is notorious for holding grudges and will almost certainly kick up a fuss.

WWY?? Do you see that situation the same way or do you feel differently about it? Have you ever tried this? What are some ways you entertain yourselves on road trips? Let me know!

justamarylandgirl2 Comments

Road Trip Mix – Mountain Vibes Edition

It’s road trip season, and that definitely means that road trip music is necessary.

My recent trip to Wintergreen Resort in the Blue Ridge Mountains, VA was wonderful. And for this trip, of course there was lots of music over the course of my two-week stay. From the car ride itself, to the mountain bar, to the live musicians that entertained us, music was a constant.

I hate to sound cliche but this mountain resort was sorta Dirty Dancing-ish. We stayed up on one of the mountain sides in a cozy condo, and we came down the mountain (cue the Dirty Dancing stair scene) to go to the lodge, the restaurants, and other activities out on the main lawn. Though Dirty Dancing represented a specific period in time, my music mix has a range of songs…from 80’s and 90’s…to a little older…to a little more recent.

These songs in my playlist were tunes that I heard throughout either the road trip portion or while I was on the mountain at the bar, or at one of the live music performances (hint: the vibe changes a little when we heard the reggae band). The songs stuck out to me when they came on. They were songs that I loved singing, songs that put me in a mood, and songs that made me reminisce. Some are fun, some are quite emo, some will have you running to your journal. But they are a mix of really good ballads, awesome hits, and just great songs to sing for whatever reason.

Somehow these songs made their mark on my mountain road trip so I compiled them as I went along so that I could put together this playlist for my (and your) future enjoyment. Click here for the full playlist on youtube, feel free to jump straight to an individual song below, or scroll down for the playlist embedded in this post.

What would you add to my mountain playlist? Have any faves from this list?

Let me know!

justamarylandgirlLeave a comment

Oops I Broke Something: Airbnb Mishaps

Things happen.  We are all human.  And just as I accidentally break things in my own home from time to time, obviously things can happen in the Airbnb homes that I rent as well.  I do try to specifically and intentionally be extremely careful as an Airbnb guest, because I really do not want to have to spend money replacing things and I don’t want a bad rating. 

But…life happens.  Things get damaged, things get broken, it happens.

Luckily, so far, I haven’t broken or damaged anything major. And **fingers crossed** it stays that way.

So the question is—as a guest, what do you do if you break or damage something?

I actually find that the answer is really simple. 

Do as you’d want someone to do if they broke an item in your home.  In my opinion, that really only leaves three choices.

  1. Fix it.
  2. Replace it.
  3. Notify the host of the damage.

Or possibly a combination of all three.

Here are a couple of real-world examples from my Airbnb adventures of times when things got damaged, and how I handled them.

Fix it.  It was literally the first home on my adventure.  I hadn’t even checked in yet.  It was well after 10pm when I had pulled into the driveway, opened the trunk to my car, and out tumbled a bottle of red wine.  It hit the ground so hard and so fast.  The bottle shattered, and red wine went all over the driveway.  I wasn’t sure if it would stain the ground and I really didn’t want THIS to be my first impression in my first Airbnb home.  I was exhausted from a long day and long drive.  All I wanted to do was get inside, shower, and go to bed.  It was late and I couldn’t even see because it was dark, I hadn’t even opened the door to the home, and I was nervous that neighbors would think I was trying to break into a home that I didn’t belong in.  But I knew that I would feel horrible if on day 1, I stained the driveway.  Despite exhaustion, I searched.  In the dark I was able to find the hose, wash down the driveway, collect the glass, and get everything cleaned up.  WHEW!!!  All was fixed, and all was well.  And now I can check into the home and hit the sheets.

Replace it.  I will say this. I do feel like there are times that some hosts just leave old dishes they no longer want, for their guests to use.  Knowing that dishes are not clean, kinda rusty, or downright unusable, they still stick them in cabinets and drawers, so that they can check the box stating that they have a stocked kitchen.  Or it could be that previous guests jacked the dishes up and maybe the host hasn’t realized it. Whatever the case, it’s a little gross and kinda irritating.  But we make do.  We wash everything super well before we use them, and we line the dishes that we can with aluminum foil when we cook in them.  In one home, we used a well-worn baking sheet left by the host. We lined it with foil and cooked our dinner.  When we pulled the sheet out of the oven, it was burned too bad to continue to use.  The foil had burned through, and had welded itself onto the crud that was already on the baking sheet.  Though we didn’t feel like it was our fault, because the thing was crusty to begin with, we still opted to purchase a new set of cookie sheets.  We left one sheet at the home to replace the sheet that was no longer usable, and we kept one for our travels.  Though we didn’t feel like we should have felt obligated to replace it, we felt like it was easier to replace it without risking a misunderstanding that resulted in a bad rating from the host.  At the end of the day, it was $10 and it wouldn’t break us.

Notify the host.  At the home in Frederick, one day we looked and just realized the inside of the comforter had a huge rip.  We have NO idea how it got there.  We don’t know if it was there before we arrived and we just hadn’t noticed.  Or whether we damaged the comforter ourselves and just didn’t realize it.  We had a choice to make.  Ignore it entirely and pretend we didn’t see it, or notify the host.  I did what I would want someone to do if I were the host and they were staying at my home.  We contacted the host and explained what we noticed. We asked if he preferred that we pay for it or buy another comforter to replace it.  We realize that an Airbnb home is not the Marriott.  The hosts aren’t sitting around with clean replacement bed linens just waiting to be called into service.  I knew there was a chance that the host had potential guests lined up to move in immediately after I checked out, and they may not have had time to search for a new set before new guests arrived.  I didn’t want to put them into a situation where they were unprepared for incoming guests.  I also didn’t want them to sacrifice their rating by providing (unbeknownst to them) torn linens to guests.  Ultimately, I sent the host a note and asked if they wanted us to reimburse them for the comforter, or if they preferred that we go out and buy a replacement comforter set.  They asked that we replace it, and we did just that.  Was it our fault or our obligation to replace it?  I’m not really sure.  Should they have a line item in their budget that accounts for guest mishaps?  Yes, absolutely.  But at the end of the day, it wasn’t a huge deal to us.  My boyfriend and I split the cost, we found something comparable, and moved on with our lives. We felt this was the easiest way, even if the onus wasn’t necessarily on us to replace the comforter set.

If you rent an Airbnb, or another vacation home, keep in mind that things happen. Items get worn out, things break, things get damaged. Just be honest about it, and handle it the way you’d like others to handle it if it was your item that was torn, damaged, or broken.

Have you ever had a mishap at an Airbnb? What did you do about it? If you’re a host, how would you like a guest to handle an incident in your home?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

justamarylandgirl

Life Around the Airbnb (Fredlandia)

I feel like I should be doing better at keeping you updated on the haps with my Airbnb life, so I’m going to just start posting more frequently about the normal day to day things that happen around here.  Sometimes I feel like if nothing significant happens, then it’s not worth writing about, and quite honestly, I am realizing that’s not quite how blogging works.  I find I’m really intrigued by the journal entry type of blog posts just as much as the posts about a specific topic. 

So with that said, I’ll craft my first “Life Around the Airbnb” post and let you know what’s going on in my Airbnb life.

So here goes…

Today we are about two weeks away from checking out of this home, and here’s what we’ve been up to this week.

We are currently renting a nice two-story townhouse style condominium in a modern development in Frederick.  We positively love the home, and we love the area so much, but we absolutely do not love the neighbors.  More on that later. 

We initially rented the home for a month, but we decided to extend another month because we really felt like there was more to do and see here in Frederick. Due to the pandemic combined with the cold March weather, we were limited with how much exploring we could do, and there is so much in this area to explore.  In addition, I had a few appointments in the Maryland area that required me to stay fairly local for a couple weeks.  So, despite the neighbors that we don’t care for, we decided to stay put for another month because we love the home and the area.

A majority of this week was devoted to looking forward.

One thing about starting each rental at an Airbnb when you’re of no fixed address—it isn’t long before you have to start thinking about where you will go the following month.  So we like to get going with that search pretty soon after we move into a home.  While being able to hop around is quite freeing, the research involved in selecting your next home can be quite daunting.  And here are a few reasons why:

Price considerations – As you can expect, we have a monthly budget for our rentals.  We wanted to keep the price at or below what we’d spend on a rental or monthly mortgage payment if we stayed in one fixed location.  What we’ve discovered is, while there are a lot of great rentals that would be wonderful for a weekend trip or a family vacation, they aren’t feasible for monthly stays when you multiply out the daily rate by 30 days and then add fees.  We just are not paying $6,000 a month for an Airbnb.  Just not doing it.  So that whittles down our prospective homes quite a bit, and makes us negotiate wants versus needs.  Though there are monthly discounts (more on that later), once you add in fees and such, the prices can still rise quite high.

Monthly inventory – There are a lot of homes that are available for a weekend or for a week or two, but the inventory of monthly rentals is definitely significantly smaller than the inventory of homes that you may find when you’re researching places for that weekend girls retreat or the family beach trip. Sometimes we have looked in certain cities and the inventory for a monthly rental for our dates is less than 5 homes.

Our criteria – Anyone renting or buying anything has a set list of criteria, which includes your non-negotiables as well as the things you’re willing to be a little more flexible on.  Sometimes our options significantly decrease just by filtering out ones with no kitchen. For a space to be our home for a month, there are definitely things that are important to us.  We have learned that we operate best when a home has two bedrooms and two bathrooms at the very least (no adorably chic tiny homes for us!).  For one reason, we both work full time from home, and we both have meetings and make calls. Many times our meetings and calls are at the same time, so another bedroom or a designated office with a door is crucial.  And the bathroom…well…lol…I’m sure no explanation is needed for this one.  We rented a home with one bathroom, and it worked fine, but our preference is two if possible.

Seasonal aspects – Some areas are more popular based on the season, so working around the price hikes for certain areas can be tricky.  Yes it sounds awesome to be at the beach for a month, but guess what…you will definitely pay a premium price for a monthly stay at a beach during beach season.  And who really wants to be there in off-season?  Well…some may, but…the point usually is to enjoy the weather and the water, and to do that, you will pay higher prices.  And same is true for mountains during ski season.  So navigating those nuances can add to the trickiness of selecting a home.  You may want to be somewhere in off-season, but if it’s 10 below and you only do outdoor dining, or if the area is shut down because it’s non-peak, is it really a place you want to be?

Working the Airbnb system – The great thing about monthly rentals on Airbnb is that there is typically a discount for longer stays.  We have found that in some circumstances, extending our stay by a few days can decrease the price by a few hundred dollars.  So even if we don’t need the extra days, we may reserve them just to get the cheaper price.  But figuring out which homes that applies to, and what the right length of time needed for the best price, this can be time consuming and somewhat frustrating.

Because picking our next spot can be sort of challenging, we typically start working on that within a week of moving into a new space.  This week we searched, whittled down, selected, and reserved our next home. Can’t wait to tell you about that! 

So now that that’s done, we feel like we can breathe a bit and enjoy the remainder of our time in our current space.

And that’s what’s been happening around the Airbnb this week.

Have any questions about airbnb life or what we’ve been up to while in Frederick, Maryland, comment below or send me a message at justamarylandgirl@gmail.com! Also follow me on IG at justa_mdgirl!

justamarylandgirl

My So Called Airbnb Life

The North Carolina Modern Farmhouse Bungalow

I feel like I should have made this post a couple months ago, but…better late than never, right?  You may have seen me mention Airbnb life in a few of my IG and blog posts, so here’s why.

“Let’s find some beautiful places and get lost together”

Towards the end of last year, as my apartment lease was coming to an end, I had a decision to make. I had to decide whether to renew my lease or find somewhere else to live.  I really didn’t care for the complex I was living in, and finding a new place to rent was proving to be harder than I imagined.  Because of COVID and its restrictions on landlords, rental home inventory in my area was pretty locked up.  I didn’t want to move into another apartment, (I was moving from a bad experience with a neighbor and just did not want to be connected to another person). I wasn’t quite prepared to buy another property (I already have a condo that I rent out and am not looking to buy anything else right now), and my rental options were extremely limited for the Southern Maryland region.  As time was winding down on my lease, the whole search was absolutely stressing me out.

In addition, we were around month 9 of this crazy pandemic, we were knee deep in an unreal election cycle, civil unrest was on an uptick, and I felt like I just needed an escape of some sort.  Travel was essentially restricted so a vacation wasn’t really an option, nor was it a long-term solution.

One day, almost as a joke, I said “I should just pack up my stuff and Airbnb it until I’m over it.”

It seemed like a ridiculous idea…until it wasn’t.  What does that even mean?? Airbnb it? What are you even talking about?? Airbnb isn’t even a verb!

After a few conversations with my boyfriend, and a lot of hypothetical what-ifs, we decided what the hell!  We were both teleworking for the indefinite future, all we needed was an internet connection, and that connection did not HAVE to be in Southern Maryland. 

I swear I did not think my stuff would fit!

We came up with a list of criteria for a rental home, we entered said set of criteria, and we searched until we were numb. We whittled down our list and tuned in on one home that piqued our interest. We had probably looked at that Airbnb listing a million times before we made our decision. We decided to go for it, and eventually we made our first monthly reservation. We didn’t really know what to expect.  Could we live in a rental home for an entire month?? What if we hated it on day 1 and were stuck?? We have no place else to go!

The pictures looked adorable but, in this day of filters and angles, anything can be made to look amazing. 

Once the reservation was made, it was time to execute our plan. For the last couple months of 2020, we debated logistics, we purged, stored, and packed all our possessions.  We finished out our lease, and by January 1st, we were in our first Airbnb—an adorable modern bungalow right outside of Raleigh, NC.

North Carolina Rest Stop on the way to our first Airbnb

When move day arrived, we pulled into the driveway well after dark.  We were exhausted from cleaning out the apartment, packing up the car, visiting relatives dropping off random this and thats, doing our last-minute Maryland items, and then driving the four hours to North Carolina.  We fumbled through the self-check-in, we unpacked the car, (dropping a bottle of red wine all over the driveway…sigh…), showered and went to bed.  We barely found our pj’s and toothbrushes before we called it a night.  But the next morning when we woke up, explored our new (temporary) home, and realized how much we loved the idea of what we’d done.

The home was exactly as the pictures portrayed.  YAY!  The décor was adorable, the modern furnishings were so chic, and the personal touches from the host were perfect.  It was peaceful. The scenery was so calming. We felt relaxed and it was wonderful.

Anyone who has taken a staycation can probably relate.  It doesn’t matter if you go down the street or to another country, there is just something therapeutic about being out of your home, your day-to-day routine, your normal space, and in a new environment.  And after nine months of quarantine, and a year of an unpleasant neighbor, new scenery was so refreshing.  Even if all we did was sit inside this home and work, cook, eat, and do normal every day things, we felt like a new peaceful space, and slightly warmer weather, would be just what the doctor ordered.

While it feels super weird to have no fixed address, and to not know where I will be living two months from now, somehow my nerves are less frazzled than they were living next to a neighbor that drove me insane, while constantly watching news that regurgitated the COVID/election/racial injustice cycle.

I’m not entirely sure how long I’ll be an Airbnb vagabond, but I’d love to take you all on this little journey with me.  I can’t promise it will be super exciting, but I will share some homes, experiences, and lessons that I learn along the way. I’m three months and three homes into this experience, and it’s been a pretty interesting lifestyle thus far. 

Have you ever thought of doing anything like this? If so, what would be your approach? What would you want to do? Where would you want to go?

Have questions, hit me up!

justamarylandgirl