5 Tips on Booking the Best AirBnb

I firmly believe AirBnb has revolutionized how we travel. It allows us to stay anywhere in the world for just about any price. But like most big and scary internet sites, there are some tips to follow to make sure you are getting the best bang for your buck. 

1. UNDERSTAND THE RATING - Notice I didn’t just say “look at the rating”? There are a lot of ratings now-a-days and just looking at it is usually sufficient. For example, if I am on the fence about a movie and I see it has a 20% on Rotten Tomatoes then I don’t usually go into the reviews to understand why it got 20%. I just wait for it to go to streaming services to watch it. But this is your home away from home. Staying in a shitty place can make or break an entire vacation/trip, which is why you need to look at why a rating is what it is. 

For the sake of this tip, let's say you are going to Barcelona in July and you see a place that has 4.75 stars. Not too shabby. The pictures look great and it’s in a great part of town. But then you start to read the reviews and the majority of positive ones are from people staying during the winter when the average temp is 60ºF. However, when you look at reviews from people staying in the summer months they say it’s absolutely unbearable (real life example). 

On the other side of the coin, let's say you find a place that looks good to you but it only has 4 stars. However, you go to the reviews and there are only two reviews and they both say that everything is incredible but it’s on the third floor with no elevator which made it difficult for them. That’s not difficult for you so should you really decline a great deal because of some stairs? This brings me to my next tip...

Here is an example of a review below. You can’t see how many stars the person gave a place so for all we know this person gave this location 3 out of 5 stars because the pool was chilly.

2. HOW MANY REVIEWS? Less reviews might mean a lower price, but it also means more of a gamble on your part. I am not saying don’t stay somewhere that only has a couple of reviews, but you run a higher risk of an unpleasant surprise here as opposed to somewhere that has 275 reviews. You shouldn't be surprised staying anywhere with a healthy number of reviews because you should be reading a good chunk of those (see number 1 tip). 

This is my own personal preference, but I never book a new listing with 0 reviews. I feel bad because everyone has to start somewhere, but unfortunately I am not going to be that first guinea pig. I have read too many horror stories of people showing up to a place that doesn’t exist, college kids living in the other room partying when you have a marathon to run the next day even though it says it should be the whole apartment (my wife’s real life example), and more. On to number 3! 

3. LOOK AT THE ADDITIONAL FEES - AirBnb has gotten trickier with their fees since I first started using the site. On the confirmation screen before you purchase make sure to look at the final price because you might be in for a surprise. It’s not hard to see a place for $50 a night, but on the confirmation screen it says there is a cleaning fee and service fee, bringing the total up to $75/night. 

4. USE THE MAP - When searching there should be a map by default on the right hand side of your screen. You have the option of just looking at listings without the map, but I would advise against that. You should understand where you are staying and this becomes more important with places you are less familiar with. It’s VERY easy to search for a city and see a place, with great ratings, and a great price and jump on it because of AirBnb’s stupid “This is a rare find” text they will throw up there. But hold your horses and see if the location is right for you. Are you flying in? Where is the airport in relation to where you are staying? How do you get there? Are you looking for a relaxing time and the area you are in is surrounded by clubs? Are you staying in the Atacama desert like a mile outside of the main area and there is no public transportation where your place is (real life example)? Just use the map and don’t rush. 

5. ENTIRE PLACE vs. PRIVATE BEDROOM - It goes without saying that you should check mark your criteria before performing the search (price range, number of people, and the type of place you are looking for). The one criteria though that you should pay extra attention to is the type of place. Hosts love taking liberties with this especially when overseas. The most common one you will find is on the “Entire Place” listings. There have been countless instances where our place was listed as being an entire place, but we’ve gotten there and it’s been an entire basement (with a separate entrance) or a small detached structure in someone’s backyard. I am not saying they classified it wrong (well maybe the basement example) BUT just be mindful because while it might not bother us I can understand why it would make others very uncomfortable. 

Below is a perfect example. Notice that “Whole Place” is selected as a filter but Chef Tan’s place is a private guest suite and the title says “Private Home”. My guess would be that this is a suite within someone’s house or a detached suite but still on the property of someone’s home. May not be a big deal, but make sure to check what you’re signing up for.

None of these are too hard to do, but they can make or break a trip!

How To Backpack Travel the World for a Year?

Drop everything and just do it! Kidding. I despise when this is the big and profound answer that people provide who have already done it. The only people that have the luxury of “dropping everything now” to travel for an elongated period of time are either: a.) rich or b.) stupid. Rich people can drop everything, travel, and when they come back they will still be rich. Stupid people will drop everything, leave, and then quickly realize they are in over their head. So my answer is the exact opposite of “just do it” but instead “think and plan it”. Here are my steps to drop everything and travel the globe: 

Think About Stuff

1. What’s your motivation? Why do you want to leave in the first place? Are you just pissed off at work? Don’t want to see your ex at a bar anymore? Just see an Instagram post of a model swimming with dolphins? Read a blog post about how a couple sold all their shit and bought a sailboat even though they didn’t know how to sail and now has 4.5 million followers on social media? OR do you want to get out and see the world? Do something that will affect the rest of your life and your outlook on things in general? Meet people from different backgrounds and ethnicities that you otherwise wouldn’t have? Take countless risks ranging from eating something at a shady food truck in Laos to quitting your job? 

Seriously, sit down and consider why you want to do this.

2. Once you have determined what is motivating you to do this then you need to determine what your overall goal is (cough financial shit cough). Okay, so now you have really thought about why you want to do this and you want to move forward. The next step is the sucky one, but it’s absolutely essential and that’s your end goal. When I say “end” I mean the day you actually get on the plane to leave. Usually this goal is going to be one or both of these things: 

a.) Time Based - i.e. Your goal is to leave in exactly two years. 

b.) Financial Based - i.e. Your goal is save $X amount. 

Either one of these is fine and depends on your own personal preference and circumstances. This goal is going to keep you motivated and will hopefully be something concrete you can look at when you have a shitty day at work (i.e. “Wow my day sucked, but only six months until blastoff” or “Wow my day sucked, only $10,000 more to go”). 

Do Stuff

3. Work towards that goal. This is a “Duh. No shit” task, but it’s arguably one of the most important because if you don’t meet your goal then you probably won’t be going. As stated earlier, everyone is different and everyone’s circumstance is different, but most likely you are going to have to start making some sacrifices to hit your goal. If your goal is financial related then I can’t tell you what you should stop doing or start cancelling (like one of your 15 streaming services), but I will suggest one step, and that’s to set up an account where those dolla dolla bills go directly into savings and doesn’t take any human intervention. I used a site called Smarty Pig, and it’s simply a savings account that collects a little bit of interest. It’s a super easy interface and every two weeks (when my wife and I got paid) money would go from our checking account into this Smarty Pig account where it tells you how close you are to hitting the goal. 

4. Start evaluating and writing down EVERYTHING you will be leaving and what it will require for you to leave it.  Just a simple Google Doc, Word file, Notepad, or napkin will suffice. And I mean EVERYTHING. Here is an example of a list. 

• House: Will have to rent or sell.

• Dog: Go to my parents. 

• Job: At least a month heads up because they will be lost and confused without me. 

• Water bill: Can cancel at anytime. 

• Electric: Can elect the specific day you want to stop billing. 

• Netflix: Keep because it works internationally. 

• HBO: I can’t imagine a world without it, but I must cancel. 

Some more tips on this step: 

• This list can be as specific or generic as you see fit. I am a crazy person and literally had line items for family that reminded me I would be missing my nieces’ most influential years of when they will decide whether or not I am a cool uncle. 

• This list should also evolve! For example, when you know the specific date that you are blasting off, then start adding in dates to this master document (i.e. Cancel HBO on April 20th). This list might even link off to other documents because when you are starting to evaluate whether to rent or sell a house that’s probably not going to fit in a single cell. 

• Start checking shit off! Nothing makes you feel better than making a cell green or pressing that strikethrough option when you’ve completed a task. 

5. Route Planning - What interests YOU. Fun part.  Finally some fun. Let yourself daydream a little and start trying to craft that itinerary. You should probably start by just simply listing your Must Haves. Your Must Haves are the places that you can’t live without seeing on this trip. For us this was Machu Picchu, London, Amsterdam, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt, Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos. 

Some more tips on this step: 

• Buy a big dry erase map. I don’t care how good you think you are at geography, you need to be able to physically see the route for it all to make sense. It’s dry erase because things will change. 

• Places will start weeding themselves out for whatever reason. Whether it be time constraints or financial constraints, there will be some places that get cut and that’s okay. You will go back to them someday. For example, we originally had Scandinavia and a few places in southern Africa on our list, but time and money just weren’t going to allow us to hit those. 

• Think about the weather. We like to hike so we wanted to be in certain places when it was warmer. Figure out the places that require a certain type of weather and that might completely flip an itinerary. For example, if you are wanting to hike the Annapurna circuit in Nepal, then you might not want to be hitting that part of your journey in December. 

• Don’t let this stress you out. Out of all the things you are going to have to do, this should not be the part that stresses you out. This should simply be a skeleton outline that provides some structure and just know that it will change throughout your adventure. 

6. Start evaluating and writing down EVERYTHING you will be acquiring, and what it will require for you to acquire it (tongue twister).  See what I did here? Number 4 was about stuff you are leaving or getting rid of and this is about the stuff you are acquiring :). For me this was the worst step because it usually just means money money money. What are you going to need to do this trip? Here’s an example list: 

• Backpack - 40 liter 

• Passport renewal

• New cell phone plan 

• Health insurance

• Storage unit for all of your stuff

• Immunizations 

Some more tips on this step:

• There are packing lists everywhere so use those to get ideas on what you will need. 

• You already know this, but obviously the lighter you travel, the easier it is. Trust me, we’ve been traveling with just two large backpacks and our ability to move easily with those has been crucial. We’ve seen too many people swearing at their rolling suitcases.

Leave and Stuff

7. Now, JUST DO IT - Eventually you will have to abide by the stupid saying you avoided when you began this process. You have to pull the trigger or you never will. Trust your planning and preparation, and go see the world!