How To Score Last Minute Summer Vacation on Airbnb
It’s that time of the year – school is out, you’re friends are going home to visit their families, and others are making their vacation plans if they haven’t made them so far. Pace of everyday life has slowed down and everybody is looking for a fun thing they can do over the summer. If you have friends like I do, chances are everything is going to be last minute.
When the time came to make decision for this year’s trip, all the travel arrangements were pretty much sold out and only the expensive one were left. We’ve decided to look elsewhere, however we knew that we had to carefully plan everything out if we wanted to stay inside the budget. Routes were planned, cities were chosen, only thing left was to make all the accommodation arrangements. We knew that Airbnb is the only reasonable solution since never once has it failed on us.
Looking for an accommodation
If you decide to book your accommodation you’ll have to know a few things. First things first – make sure you know how many of your friends are staying with you. This could dramatically alter the price of your accommodation, and the accommodationitself. It is usually a lot cheaper to rent a big apartment to a bunch of people, however smaller flats are usually better equipped.
When looking for an apartment on Airbnb, you’ll first have to choose the city where you’re going as well as check-in and check-out time. The service will also ask you for the number of people who are staying in order to give you the most idealresults. After you have entered this information, it will prompt you to a page where all the free apartments are listed.
Choosing the right apartment
One of the main reasons my friends and I have opted for Airbnb is because it’s much more personal than other booking services. After all, you are staying in someone’s flat or a house and the overall experience is much more intimate. There are no angry receptionists here. People who rent these apartments are so much more nicer and over the time you become friends with them, especially if you’re going back.
Never once have I encountered a trouble with the accommodation or people who were renting it. But back to the tutorial. Key to a good accommodation on Airbnb is to look for reviews and carefully read them. There are no two same exact apartments and although one could be better equipped you might like the other because of it’s overall vibe or because it’s close to metro station.
On the left side there is an interactive map through which you can browse and choose different neighborhoods. Below the map is a section where you can pretty much customize your search. You can choose how many rooms you want, how many bathrooms there are – the service will adjust the results to your liking.
You can also choose the price for a single night which will further help you if you’re traveling on budget. Airbnb has this really nifty thing where you basically have to enter the check-in and check-out date in the beginning of search and it will automatically give you all the available apartments.
Booking the apartment
Once you’ve made your decision, all you have to do is book the apartment of your choice. In order to this you have to contact the person who is renting the place, and there is usually a one day waiting period before they get back to you via email. You can also see their profile which should include their biography and their profile picture.
People who rent apartments usually accept PayPal, credit and debit cards but you can also pay with cash once you check-in or check-out.
My friends and I are going to Vienna this summer thanks to Airbnb. What is your destination of choice?
