My Airbnb Experience

During our trip around Europe this year, Matt and I decided that we wouldn’t do what we usually do when it comes to accommodation. Up until this point, whenever I visited a new place whether that was abroad or even in the UK, I would always book a hotel.

This time round however, we wanted to save a little bit of money but also try something different. And so, we started to look into Airbnbs.

I feel like I’ve been living under a rock for all these years, but let me just say it…Airbnbs are awesome. Matt has already been on a few, but as someone who has never ever even stayed at a hostel, this was big news.

⭐️ My experience was fantastic overall.

There were some times – especially at the start – where I was quite nervous with the whole check-in and check-out process, just because it was so different to what I was used to! When we first got to Budapest, I didn’t know which floor our apartment was on so I accidentally went to a random floor and pressed a button that rung all the doorbells on that floor. Yep, I was that tourist. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Meeting some of the hosts was scary at the start, but after a while, I looked forward to meeting each one! It gave us an opportunity to talk about the city with a local.

With that said though, I enjoyed it when we could do a self-check-in. It always felt like I was trying to solve a puzzle! Like, ooo instruction says go to a white door and within that is a set of keys you can unlock with a secret code. ooooo. 👀I had a lot of fun, but equally, it was stressful when they didn’t make sense or weren’t clear. 😂

The amount of money we saved was great, especially for a place for ourselves that felt like home away from home! Our studio apartment in Prague cost us £100 for 3 days. 🤯(My mom’s face when I told her this was priceless. 😆)

Most of the time, we were walking distance to the central part of each city as well so I feel like we really got our moneys worth. The only exception to that was when we were in Paris, where we were so far away from Paris and Disneyland (where we were going most of the time) that it took us over an hour to get there. Oops.

Travel mistake 50382: I booked an Airbnb that is far out from central Paris. I thought it was in an area that I had been to before on a previous trip with my family (La Defense) but turns out, it’s not. That’s Part 1.

— Pauline P. Narvas 🐾 (@paulienuh) May 2, 2019

It was sort of funny because Matt was insisting that we find an Airbnb close to Disneyland, but I was so set on the one I found (which I thought was close but no where near) Sorry x 100 to both Matt and Darren. 😂

Lessons learnt for Paris for future:
– Don’t stay somewhere without a nearby Metro stop;
– Don’t stay somewhere on the opposite side of where you want to go;
…
– Don’t be lazy with my own supporting research & blindly say yes to Airbnbs Pauline finds 🤣🤣🤣 https://t.co/Q29ZjC0yWB

— Darren (@MrDarrenV) May 5, 2019

🏡 A tour of our Airbnbs

For those who haven’t ever tried Airbnb before for whatever reason, I hope that this encourages you to do so in your next trip!

As someone who was worried about staying anywhere but a hotel when they travel, this was a real eye-opener for me. Definitely will be choosing to look at Airbnbs first, before anything else in the future.

Where we stayed

• In Budapest 🇭🇺
• In Vienna 🇦🇹
• In Prague 🇨🇿
• In Hamburg 🇩🇪
• In Paris 🇫🇷

✈️ Try out Airbnb for your next trip, for a home away from home experience!