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Comment by golergka | Hacker News Reader

I constantly see bad feedback on Airbnb and Twitter, and when I ask where these things happened, it's usually USA. I lived in Airbnbs almost exclusively the whole 2022, and travelled through various european countries, moved 32 times total. I've never had any of these problems, any cleaning fees or other stuff like that. I've rented full apartments for $70 per night, where I could cook, do laundry and in general feel much more comfortable than in a hotel for a stay longer than a week.

May be Airbnb is only bad in states?

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I definitely think there's something to this. I've had much better experiences in AirBnb in Mexico and Europe than I have in the US.

landlord culture

Yup, everyone surprised by the ticky tacky cleaning fee nonsense has probably not gotten a security deposit back in recent years. Now you have the management companies that make a slumlord mom and pop look like a kind relative running some of these vacation rental properties as well, applying the same rigid Orwellian policies designed to shake out as much money from you on your way out as possible.

There must be some books or trade magazines out there where they are all getting this stuff...

Small sample size but the only time a host complained about how clean I left a place was in Tignes, France. Their complaint? There were crumbs on the floor, _under_ the overhang of the dishwasher.

I've probably booked 15 airbnbs in the US, and they've all been great. No complaints of unruly hosts, or crazy checkout chores. I think if you stick with superhosts or any property with lots of reviews, you'll usually have a good time. My biggest problem with airbnb at this point is the hidden fees until checkout.

My wife and I are what I call “hybrid digital nomads”. We stay in a unit in a “Condotel” [1] we bought last summer six months out of the year - October through mid March - and we fly around the US staying in mid range extended stay hotels the rest of the year.

We experimented with AirBnb one time last year while we were in Florida looking at places before we bought. While the experience wasn’t bad, we really prefer hotels.

At a hotel, we always have access to a gym, the vast majority of the time we have access to a pool and we have consistency.

I know exactly how much we will be paying, we check in before we get there on the app, our digital key is usually ready and we go straight to the room and unlock the door with our phone. When we get ready to leave. We leave. We don’t have to wash anything. Clean up anything. Nothing. We just leave.

We don’t have to worry about auditioning to find a place to stay our ratings as guests and we know the exact address of the hotel.

We usually fly out on Sunday. When I land, I want to know what I’m going to get. I prepare my work setup when I land. My wife does an Instacart order.

I don’t have to worry about shady owners, renting places that aren’t zoned for short term stays etc.

If I have an issue, and the hotel can’t or won’t fix it, I can look for another hotel, cancel the reservation with no questions asked and move on.

Not to mention that I’m also getting loyalty points along the way - worth around 25-30% - of each dollar spent for future stays.

We are using the points we earned to stay free for a week this year in a San Juan, PR, Los Angeles, Niagara Falls Canada and Toronto. We stayed in downtown Savannah for a week free New years week.

[1] https://www.thebalancemoney.com/what-is-a-condotel-5212277

Just wonder about your lifestyle, you must live minimal in a "suitcase", no? Do you use some storage services? Where you eat? I wonder as hotel room with kitchenettes are limited to very basic appliances.

Three suitcases between myself and my wife - two checked bags and one carry on.

Either her or I use the carry on when we travel by ourselves - me on business trips and her to conferences.

The kitchens usually have a full refrigerator and two burner stove.

Our Condotel for the winter is a full two bedroom/two bath condo with a stove and oven.

No storage services. We threw out everything and sold our cars.

I'm curious, how did you find a condotel to buy into? This is the first I've heard of something like this, and I live in a pretty touristy area of Florida.

Dumb luck.

Our original plan was to move to Florida full stop. We were looking on Redfin for a condo with a view, access to pools, walking distance to restaurants and it showed up.

We called the real estate agent and she explained the concept and said we could only live there 180 days. I was initially disappointed. But then my wife said we wanted to travel anyway, so why not travel around the US the rest of the year.

BTW, I tried to find the most even handed article of the pros and cons. Most of the sites you find are by real estate agents who want you to buy. Let me be more clear.

You will lose money over the course of the year on almost all of them even if you put the required 25-30% down.

The income offsets some of the holding costs.

I had a plan going in and this was never meant to be an investment.

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