Let me be the first to tell you…I am a late adapter! To give you an idea, I haven’t even had my Instagram account for a year yet, haha! Just in case you’re anything like me, let me explain what Airbnb actually is. Airbnb is a website for people to rent out their homes. Who does this you might ask. Well, there are over 1,000,000 listings in 34,000 cities and 190 countries! Wow!! The idea of sleeping in a strangers house, much less their sofa, wasn’t really appealing to me at first. *key word here is stranger* Don’t get me wrong I love meeting new people, but sleeping in their homes? Finally, after much thought along with my husband warming me up to the idea for over a year, I just recently booked and stayed at my first Airbnb location!! Yay me!
Okay, now that I’ve gotten you up to speed with my cautious approach to, well, anything really…let me explain my experience.
Building a Profile and Booking Your Stay with Airbnb
*Tip* Build your profile before you request a reservation. This will speed up the process quite a bit.
This was pretty simple to do, however, because I tried to do this along with booking a reservation, there were problems. I almost ran out of time to confirm my stay with the host I was trying to book accommodations with. Once you request to book a stay, Airbnb gives the host time to accept or deny your request.
*Tip 2* Use your computer instead of your smart phone, if you can, when getting your profile verified and for booking your first accommodations.
I’m not exactly sure what happened when requesting a reservation. After answering each question, I received a “Congratulations You’re Verified”. The next morning, I received an email that my verification process wasn’t completed:-( Unfortunately, I spent a lot of my morning on the phone with Airbnb trying to figure out the problem. All three representatives I spoke with were very nice and professional, but it did take some time to figure out what the actual problem was. I could only conclude that their app had some sort of technical difficulty. Oh well, that’s just life sometimes.
My Airbnb Accommodation
My husband and I went on an impromptu trip (don’t you just love those?!) to Miami for the weekend and chose to stay at the Morningside “Treehouse” Studio hosted by Teresa located in the Upper East Side of Miami. This was a fabulous location, especially if you have a car, only minutes to fabulous restaurants, Design District, Wynwood, and about 10-15 minutes to South Beach.
Teresa was a lovely host! She greeted us upon arrival…even escorted us to the door with an umbrella because it was raining a bit. The place was very clean and beautifully decorated…equipped with full kitchen, bath, separate living space, and even an office area. The garden was the best feature, for me, tropical plants everywhere and it smelled heavenly! I can see why Teresa named it the “Treehouse”, because it was on the top of two floors up in the trees with vines growing all the way up to the entrance door! Every night before we went in, we were greeted by the moon and the stars…which seemed were in arms length! Truly a Miami Oasis! I hope to return again soon:-)
Click on the following link to see more…Morningside Treehouse Studio!
Overall Airbnb Feeling
Overall, I feel Airbnb is a great company! I love being able to stay where the locals live and to get a better sense of the place I’m visiting. I feel that Airbnb gives you the ability to do just that. In spite of being a little inconvenienced with the verification process, I look forward to using Airbnb again! Actually, it puts my mind at ease, a bit, to know Airbnb has a verification process for both the guest and the host. You can actually look for what they call a “Superhost” badge, only hosts with impeccable reviews and that meet certain Airbnb qualifications receive this badge. Hopefully I will be booking my next stay with Airbnb soon…I am already planning future trips and adding listings to my wish list;-)
What about you? Have you booked yet with Airbnb?
If you’re interested, click on the following link to earn a $25 credit to go towards your first booking…Airbnb credit!
I also earn a $25 credit when you book through my invitation, so thank you in advance!!
What a charming place you found there in Miami! I love the beautiful terrace and all the greenery. I’ve never used Airbnb, but will look into it next time we travel after hearing your positive experience! Also, the $25 credit will be nice too;-) I will bookmark this for future use! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks, Joscelyn! I hope your first experience is even better than mine:-) look forward to hearing about it!
I just came back from Miami, and I stayed in a hotel because I was too afraid to try Air bnb! You found such a cute little house though. I’m going to consider looking at an air bnb for my next trip!
Evi, you should definitely look into it! Look for the listings with the “super host” badge:-) Hope you have a wonderful experience with wherever you choose!! Thanks for reading:-)
You found a lovely place! You had a wonderful vacation.
Thank you! We really did enjoy our stay in Miami:-)
Wow, what a beautiful spot. I usually stay with friends when I got to Miami. What a wonderful spot! So true that it is better to stay in the city than on the tourist areas. I even got better sleep being away from the South Beach strip.