[x_section style=”margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px; padding: 0 0px 0 0px; “][x_row inner_container=”false” marginless_columns=”false” bg_color=”” style=”margin: 0px auto 0px auto; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px; “][x_column bg_color=”” type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px; “][x_custom_headline level=”h1″ looks_like=”h2″ accent=”false”]A home away from home[/x_custom_headline][x_text]10 golden tips that will transform your Airbnb experience[/x_text][x_image type=”none” src=”http://blog.cygopinath.com/foodblog/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Annies-place.png” alt=”” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=””][x_text]I AM A SURVIVOR of what I call Airbnb saturation, where a simple search for a place to stay in a strange new city turns into a complex exercise in navigating details and options. I want to share 10 handy, practical, time and energy-saving tips for organizing your Airbnb search and making sure you come out with the best deals — and the best possible holidays.
I was going to Montreal, two oceans away, for the first time and on a modest budget. Someone told me to check out Airbnb, as a surefire way to have a home-like experience, with family-like warmth and hospitality, and at a price much lower than the cheapest hotel. I went to www.airbnb.com, and started exploring.
Airbnb allows you to specify a price range for your search. I found Montreal lodgings that were just 11 dollarsThe opening page on the Airbnb website said: “Rent unique places to stay from local hosts in 190+ countries”. In the background were a series of videos showing ordinary moments from holidays, the sort of moments you remember with a happy glow afterwards.
I typed Montreal and my trip dates. The first thing I saw was a slider with $10 on one end and $1,000+ on the other. You could set your preferred range. Could I really find 10 dollar stays in Montreal? I set the range from 10 to 11 Canadian dollars — and was immediately shown 8 options. It was an OMG moment: Montreal had places you could stay for no more than 11$.
I set my range from $18 to 31 — and saw my options leap from 8 to over 300.
Pretty soon, I was immersed in a wonderland of pretty houses, fireplaces, welcoming lofts, apartments, villas, all run by smiling warm hosts.
And then a terrible thing happened — the wonderland turned into a jungle. Suddenly I couldn’t find my way. I was drowning in a whirlpool of Maximes, Mamadous, Lorelias, and Pierres,who either had or didn’t have wifi, washing machines, a view of the street, independent entrance, and so on. Some wrote about themselves in French, which was a mystery to me, and others in English. Some said nothing at all.
At one point I had 30 tabs open on my browser, and could no longer tell the houses apart. I needed a better way to do this.
I AM SHARING MY OWN set of 10 golden rules for using Airbnb to find your home away from home in a systematic and orderly manner. The first three steps should be taken even before you open the Airbnb website.
1. Set up a special folder in your browser’s Bookmarks. Call it Airbnb or the city name or whatever you wish. This is where you will keep the web links to the homes you are interested in.
2. Draft a query letter and include a detailed profile of yourself. Finding a place through Airbnb is a process of mutual selection: as much as you choose a place you like, the host too must decide you are a guest he wouldn’t mind having around. So write up two or three eloquent paragraphs about yourself, explaining why you are traveling to that city, and also a little bit about you, your work, and what makes you such a dude (or dudess). Include details of your visit, such as dates and arrival times. Use a program like Microsoft Word to craft this letter, which you will send off later to each host you pick.
3. Pick a reference point. Unless you have a specific place to visit, such as a conference or meeting, this would be downtown. Using Google, pick a landmark or important street that is downtown.
4. Set out your criteria. What do absolutely have to have? Wifi, laundry, air-conditioning, an ensuite toilet, no cats? Once you have thought through your requirements, go to the Airbnb website and start searching. Airbnb allows you to set pretty detailed filters, so you can narrow your options dramatically. Once you have a filtered selection that matches your criteria, you can go to the next step.
5. Fix your budget range. Be realistic, and remember that price and value are linked. If you want to get away with paying only 11$, you will get a sofa-bed in the living room, not a room of your own. If you are traveling alone, I would guess that in most countries you could get decent digs between 20 and 30 US$. With criteria and budget limits set, you will now see before you a list of homes that match your wish list. Start exploring each one.
6. Read the host’s profile carefully. These can range from empty to prolific, and be in English or in some strange language you cannot make head or tail of. Be prepared to use Google Translate or Airbnb’s own built-in (but not so great) translator. The fantastic host I stayed with first, Annie Fontaine, had a lengthy profile in French, but what came through it was a struggle with some health issue. This troubled me at first, but everything else sounded so wonderful that I decided to go with it. Annie turned out to be an amazing, inspirational woman who had taken her health and wellbeing into her own hands when she was diagnosed with crippling rheumatoid arthritis. Through her own herculean efforts and attention to what she ate she reversed the course of the disease. Just remember: the time you spend reading a host’s profile is time well spent. You will meet some wonderful people through Airbnb.
7. Use Google maps to orient yourself. This all-important step will help you locate your home-to-be in a city you have no sense of. At the bottom of each home’s Airbnb page is its location map, with its address inside a box. Type this address into the ‘From’ field of Google Maps. In the ‘To’ field type your reference point, which you set up in Step #4, and let Google show you the directions by Metro train or bus. Note the approximate duration of the journey downtown.
8. Save each link as a bookmark, using a special naming convention. If you like what you’ve seen so far and intend to write to the host, this is the time to make a bookmark of this place, in the Airbnb location you set up in Step #1. Press Command-D or Control-D or whatever key combination adds a bookmark. When the bookmark name field pops up, use this format — .
Thus Annie Fontaine, living in Rue de Cuvillier, with digs for $23 a day, and 24 minutes from Evo at Sherbrooke, was bookmarked as
Annie $23 Rue Cuvillier 24 min
At a glance now, I would know the person, the price and the distance of the place. Revisiting the page was just a matter of a few seconds.
9. Send the query letter. Now you’re all ready to set things in motion. Going to Microsoft Word, where you crafted a query letter cum profile in Step #2. Copy and paste this into the letter field of Airbnb. Be sure to change the name of the person addressed on top of the letter. Add a few references from the person’s profile so that the letter seems personal and genuine.
10.Carry gifts when you go. This is a small suggestion, but also a big one. An Airbnb lodging is not a hotel. You will be enjoying the human warmth and hospitality of individuals and families. You will never go wrong carrying a few gifts for them from your home country. Since I was an Indian and traveling from Thailand, I carrying both aromatics and also Indian cooking spices.
The highlight of my Montreal experience was a dinner at the house of my second host, Nadia Roy. She had also invited two of her close friends, and I wanted to show them a very untypical and simple meal of the sort they would not find in an Indian restaurant. Shopping took me into the neighborhood of Verdun, where a community festival was going on, and where I got a genuine glimpse of Montreal community life. Later, as I and my new friends ate together, I reflected on the warmth and unexpectedness of four strangers, now strangers no more, cooking and eating together in a place far from my home.
Wouldn’t have happened without Airbnb.[/x_text][/x_column][/x_row][/x_section]