The hubs and I recently took a short trip to Denver, Colorado. He has since moved there, and I have begun packing for our move as well… but that is another story. In an attempt to make our trip as economical as possible we opted to try out a less conventional method of lodging… Airbnb.
We had never tried out the newly trendy accommodation system, but it seriously was cheaper than even some of the crappiest motel options… and quite frankly, our room definitely wasn’t crappy. And apparently Denver is the new Los Angeles or something, because…ish is expensive there.
Anyways. For those who do not know, Airbnb is “an online marketplace that enables people to list, find, then rent vacation homes for a processing fee.” So instead of paying a hotel for a stay, you pay a person, who a chosen to rent out their space. You can tailor the search based on your desires; from highly inexpensive shared rooms… to entire homes for rent. Each member is given a profile of sorts, where both hosts and tenants are rated and reviewed for future Airbnb reference. Because it was our first experience, I opted for someone with many many ratings and a near perfect score. Because… ya girl isn’t trying to get murdered. 😉
We rented a room from a married couple around our age. I was honestly afraid that it was going to be extremely awkward, just waltzing around someone’s private residence like a hotel. But our hosts are very experienced with Airbnb life, and it definitely showed. Instead of keys they have a door lock with a code that they can send you.
However, My anxiety was definitely amplified by our late arrival (our plane landed at 10:30pm and we arrived at almost midnight) and by the fact that… I hadn’t asked for the code before we left. So our introduction to our host Thomas was initiated by our ringing their doorbell at midnight. They were extremely nice about it though. Pam was super apologetic that she hadn’t sent the code, as was I for not asking for it the day before. The following morning they both went to work/school and we had the house to ourselves. We had our own mini fridge, microwave, Keurig for coffee, and the bathroom was stocked with the necessities. We probably would’t have had to interact with them at all if we didn’t want to.
But, that’s not really Josh’s style. Our first evening, after hours of romping around downtown Denver, Josh went downstairs to chat and watch tv with Pam and Thomas. Mind you, I am enormously pregnant, just walked about 5 miles in a day, and my hips have become some kind of sick medieval torture device that I can’t remove…but after sitting in the room alone for a few minutes my socialite tendencies got the better of me and I decided to wander downstairs as well.
We actually really enjoyed our hosts company! Their roommates were fun as well. It probably helps that we’re all around the same age. (This is still weird for us, we live in Florida and all of the youth in Denver was like culture shock.) And one of their roommates even had his one year old over to visit. They kind of just made us feel like friends. Actually, Josh is staying with them again this week since he had to go back so abruptly. haha!
All in all, I would have to recommend Airbnb. It was cheaper than a hotel stay, but that’s not even why. It provided a really cool authentic feeling to the trip, as opposed to the commercialized blandness of a hotel. It was basically a really cool way to meet new people up there too. We got recommendations for breakfast, places to live, and Pam made me try fish oil (and not in capsule form.) Which is apparently good for the baby. haha!
I don’t know that our trip would have been as fun had we stayed in a regular hotel. Have you ever tried Airbnb?!
