What’s It Like Living In A Monthly Airbnb?

We’ve lived in AirBnBs for 2 months now and I’m happy to declare that it is even more awesome than I expected. If you read my massive post about how it felt to get rid of all my stuff before we became nomads, you know that I like things to be exactly my way 😉 .

Before embarking on this nomadic journey, I was both excited for the freedom and constant change it would bring, and worried that that same change would feel like a loss of stability and the comfortable home I’d built over the last 5 years. I suspected the trade off would be worth it (which is why we decided to try this life), but I expected it might be strange and uncomfortable as well.

How It Feels Living In A Monthly AirBnB

So let’s go through what this new phase of life feels like so I can document it for myself and in case it can help you if you’re ever thinking of doing the same 😉 .

It’s Exciting!

The reason I was attracted to a nomadic lifestyle was so I could explore the world. Being stuck inside at least 9-5 on weekdays (despite having a remote position for the past 4 years), was one of the things I dislike most about having a full-time job. And despite rarely having to go into the office before this pandemic, I still needed to live in Seattle for my job. My plans of jet setting and being a digital nomad had to wait.

I was attracted to the Airbnb life so I could ‘live’ in different places and explore them as a local would. I would be able to immerse myself in a new culture, order takeout to our apartment like a normal person, and learn how to navigate new grocery stores in foreign languages. And then after a month or three, we would pack up our meager belongings and start fresh in another location where there would be more to learn and explore. That was the dream.

Tip-Toeing

Well, despite my travel plans being delayed indefinitely, I am happy to report that living in Airbnbs, even in my own city, has been very exciting. I talked about why I took this baby step approach to becoming a globetrotting nomad and am so glad I did because even though we have been living in Airbnbs that are a 10-20 minute drive from our previous apartment and are technically in the same city we’ve lived in for 5 years, living in these places does feel vastly different and new.

Each of our 2 monthly Airbnbs were in other neighborhoods than the one we lived in – one neighborhood we had visited a handful of times in 5 years and the other not at all. Despite the locales not being as excitingly new as a different country, finding our way to our local grocery store while figuring out the best nearby parks and takeout spots was still fun and jump-started my brain in a way I had expected only stepping foot on another continent would.

New Discoveries

In addition to that, figuring out a new space is fascinating (and uncomfortable – in a good way). Figuring out how a new location operates: the best places to sit for direct sunlight throughout the day (Spoiler: I’m secretly a cat…), when is the best time to sit on the porch to watch the local wildlife and what configuration of furniture works best for our needs is exciting! The variety I was hoping would keep my mind fresh and my life interesting, has proven to be true even within our own proverbial backyard.

It’s Comforting

This I did not expect. I thought that living in ‘someone else’s’ space would not feel as good as living in my own. I believed that it would feel like I was slotting into someone else’s life instead of building my own. And I was wrong. After an initial period figuring things out (like I explained above) and settling in, both of our monthly Airbnbs started feeling like ‘home’.

At each location, we quickly found ‘our spot’ within the apartment – be it on the cushy bed with a laptop or in a comfy leather chair with a blanket, tea and book. When we come back from a long walk, I get that “Ahhh we’re home” feeling, which I really didn’t expect to feel in a technically transient space.

We’re Cared For

I also feel more cared for than I did when we had our own apartment. Unlike landlords, Airbnb hosts have a real, vested interest in providing you with a great experience. They get ratings from guests that are public to see and are also rated on their response time. My experience dealing with my previous landlords compared to my Airbnb hosts have been night and day.

In my first NYC apartment, we had rats, roaches, ants and no heat during one of the coldest Januarys on record and our landlord didn’t even take the time to return my daily, repeated calls. In comparison, when I have even a small question, our Airbnb host has encouraged us to ask and then responded or reacted quickly, such as when the internet seemed slow for my partner one day at our first place. We texted the landlord (his preferred method of communication) and he reset it immediately and then we were back to surfing quickly on the internet highway.

It’s entirely possible that the hosts on Airbnb are just better or less busy than actual landlords, but I generally enjoy that there are ratings and information on places before we decide to actually live there (unlike for all the rentals I’ve had in the past). I feel taken care of in an Airbnb in a way I haven’t before in our apartments.

Type & Length Of Time

Two other reasons we might feel comfortable in these transient spaces could be the type of places we’ve stayed and the our length of stay. It will probably not surprise you that I do an immense amount of research before booking an Airbnb for any amount of time and that level of research goes exponential when I decide to stay in a place longer than a week, like we have here.

For our two Seattle Airbnbs, I intentionally picked places that had several reviews from people that had stayed there a month or more so I suspected the space would have everything we needed to live there long term, like a fully stocked kitchen and other household items.

So far, that assumption has been correct. We haven’t had to buy anything to make our places fully functional, such as a spatula or an oven mitt as I’ve heard some nomad friends have had to do. So the places already feel like a home before we step inside instead of an empty space that’s only there to sleep in.

The Monthly AirBnB Emotional Timeline

Now let’s get to the timeline. Obviously we stayed in each rental for 4 weeks, which helped give us time to get used to it and allow it to start feeling like home. In case it helps, here is the rollercoaster of emotions we have experienced at each of our monthly stays:

Week 1: Settling In

The first week feels a little like normal moving except the furniture is all there, the internet is set up and you just need to put your clothes away…After I wrote all that I realized it’s actually not at all like moving – it’s way easier 😉 . One part that is similar though is figuring out your rhythm and how you work in this new space. That comes with time and feels a little uncomfortable at first, but it passes fairly quickly once we get into our groove.

Week 2 & 3: We’re Home!

Then the space starts feeling like home. I’m used to it and start thinking of it as mine. I wake up snuggled in bed with a smile on my face before starting the day. I know how this place works and have started to establish a routine unique to the space. I belong here.

Week 4: Uh oh – We’re Leaving Soon

Depending on how far you’re going, this phase can feel similar to a real move. When moving from our first monthly Airbnb to our second, we took an Uber XL and knew we could fit our leftover food from the fridge and freezer in there so the last few days felt like any other with the addition of taking an hour to pack our clothes.

However, this last move was different in that we were going cross-country so there wasn’t room to be willy-nilly about what we were bringing or just chuck frozen broccoli in a bag knowing we would unpack it 10 minutes up the road.

This last move felt similar to when we left our apartment, complete with weird food combinations the last week as we tried to eat everything in the fridge and thinking “this is the last time” while doing things like ordering from our new favorite Chinese takeout place.

FAQ

Now, to round out my novel length ramblings, I wanted to make sure I actually provided some answers to questions y’all have about living in short term rentals! So here are the answers to a few of the frequently asked questions I received on Twitter:

I've been a nomad for over a month living in Airbnbs🏡! I'm writing a post about what it's like. Are there any questions you want me to be sure to answer🤔?

— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) September 4, 2020

COVID Considerations

But of course I must also discuss one of the OG dark clouds of 2020: What it’s like changing living situations monthly during a pandemic. Given how I went full hermit when the pandemic started and have seen a handful of people outside of a computer screen, I expected to be a nervous mess about moving into different spaces during this time.

Maybe I need to learn a lesson about myself, but I can now report that that was not the case. I have not been a nervous wreck because of the precautions being taken for short term rentals.

In response to the pandemic, Airbnb introduced more cleaning procedures and the two Airbnbs we chose both have an “Enhanced Cleaning” badge, which means that the spaces are not just cleaned, but sanitized before you move in.

Further, our first Airbnb told us that they were letting the space sit with the windows open for 72 hours before and after our stay to give any possible contaminants time to die out. Knowing these protocols and seeing the spaces when we moved in, gave me peace of mind that this wouldn’t be a completely dumb move and so far that seems to have been correct (there’s my pessimism rearing its ugly head…)

Another thing we have enjoyed about being in these Airbnbs is that they were places with their own entrances so we didn’t have to share a hallway, front door or mailbox with anyone else, like we did in our apartment. Getting out of our previous apartment building was usually the most stressful part of my daily walk since I didn’t know if people would be wearing masks and there wasn’t room to avoid them.

The Cost: Monthly Airbnb VS Annual Lease

So I am as shocked as you are to say that so far, our short term rentals have cost the same as our annual lease plus utilities. And no, that is not because of COVID discounts (we booked before COVID was a thing in the US), but it is because of intentional choices.

Our goal was to book places that at a maximum kept our same budget that we had when we lived in our apartment. This was an experiment to see if that was even possible in a metropolis like Seattle, but it was!

It was possible without pandemic discounts, asking for a percent off the original price or side-stepping the Airbnb portal to get a better deal. I’m going to write a whole post about this, but overall we were able to keep our living costs the same while being transient by: (1) Monitoring the market and (2) Booking far in advance.

Back in December and January, I looked on Airbnb for what was available in Seattle every week or so. By the time a good deal popped up that fit our criteria, I knew it was a good one and jumped on it immediately. This also means that we booked our August Airbnb in January and our September Airbnb in February. I’m all about that advanced planning 🙂 .

How Does Delivery Work?

An important consideration when making a place feel like home 🙂 . For food delivery, we started providing detailed instructions for how to reach our place, and 99% of the time, it worked and the food delivery person left our meal outside our door as promised. Once they got confused and left it on our host’s front stoop and we grabbed it from them after 5 minutes when we realized what happened. No big deal.

Honestly, I’ve had more confusion when we lived in an apartment though I would have thought that would have been simpler…like the time a delivery driver gave my workday lunch to a random person in a different building 🙂 .

As for package delivery, luckily both of our places so far have been completely separate from where our host lives, so we just said “Apt A” or “Apt B” or whatever in the delivery instructions and so far it’s worked out. Though the reverse happened when an Amazon delivery person tried to give us a package for our host at the first Airbnb. I asked him to leave it on their front stoop and messaged the host telling them what was up to which they said thank you. Easy.

And if there’s anything we don’t want delivered directly to our door or that we just need digitally, (such as the bill for my latest dentist visit) I use our Traveling Mailbox address. I thought figuring out these kinds of things would be more complicated as a nomad, but it turns out that it’s pretty simple with open communication.

Do I miss the routine/stability of being in one place? Do I miss my community? Am I sick of moving luggage?

No, no and no 🙂 . I don’t miss the routine or stability yet, though I expected to. I didn’t really have a community where I lived so no – most of my friends are online from the wonderful personal finance sphere 😉 . As for moving, we moved in an Uber XL with a car full of luggage (pictured below) so it wasn’t bad at all. And before we moved cross-country we decreased all that further 3 total checked bag so ‘moving’ takes as long as rolling a bag. Simple.

This is everything we own🤷🏾‍♀️. We moved to our second monthly Airbnb in an Uber XL…a MUber🚗? Half of this stuff is food and kitchen items we'll be getting rid of, but we still need to figure out how to get this down to 2, 50lb checked bags🤣. Challenge accepted! #NomadLife pic.twitter.com/t1pYdqa3LY

— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) September 2, 2020

Conclusion

Well this post accidentally became a mammoth. Oops! I hope it was helpful in case you’re curious or even interested in trying out nomad life. It turns out that our experience has been better than forecast and I think we’re going to like our new nomad lifestyle!

Next up is seeing if we like living in a commune-type situation, which was another item on my bucket list! Since all my original retirement travel plans have been cancelled, we’ve decided to move into a shed turned tiny house that’s in my partner’s brother’s backyard. And if we or my ‘brother-in-law‘ don’t enjoy our new situation, it’s time to head back into Airbnb life next month!

Have you ever lived in a transient space long term? What was your experience?