Lessons Learned After 1 Year Of Airbnb Nomad Life

by A Purple Life, posted in Budget Check-In, Finance, Spending, Travel, Travel Reviews
This post may contain affiliate links. For more info read my disclosure.

It’s official! We’ve been nomads living in Airbnbs full-time for over 12 months now. I was really curious to see how being a nomad would work out since I’d never tried living in long term Airbnbs before and I’m happy to say that it’s even better than I thought šŸ™‚ .

I came into this lifestyle with a few assumptions that I started to question and analyze as we became more used to our new life. So let’s get into what I’ve learned and any changes I’ll be making going forward!

Things I Don’t Need

There are several amenities and objects I had assumed I would need while living in Airbnbs – it turns out that I was wrong about many of them šŸ™‚ .

A Dishwasher

When we lived in Seattle, I joked with my partner that our dishwasher was the only reason we were still together…my partner and I have different time frames for things like washing dishes (which is understandable since we are different people…).

This would at times result in me doing all the dishes and feeling like I was constantly doing them. Our dishwasher was a lifesaver because instead of washing everything by hand, I would give them a rinse and a quick swipe with the sponge and pop them all in the dishwasher.

We were also lucky to always have a dishwasher in our NYC apartments, despite that being a rarity in the city. So I assumed I would require a dishwasher to have a happy relationship in retirement, but that’s not the case šŸ™‚ . We seem to use less dishes, despite being home all the time and cooking for ourselves.

However, I also have a lot more time on my hands and don’t mind as much washing our (few) dishes by hand when I’m not working 12 hours a day. For the first few months, I had a requirement that our Airbnbs have a dishwasher, but one of our shorter stays ended up not having one and – we were fine šŸ™‚ . And when we did have a dishwasher, we often didn’t even use it. Who knew?!

A Chromecast

I had read on other nomad blogs that people always brought their Chromecast with them so that they could stream things onto the TV in the room. This often came up in international locations. Every place we have stayed in the US, had a Chromecast or equivalent, as did our Airbnbs in Thailand and Mexico. We never had to use ours, which leads me to something else strange we didn’t end up needing:

A TV

I love films and experiencing shows, so I assumed that I would need a TV as big as the one I had in our Seattle home. Well, we have lived in several places for at least a month at a time where we literally never turned on the TV. Or one time I turned it on right as we were leaving because I was curious just to discover that it had all of the streaming services installed for free. Oops! I could have been taking advantage of that šŸ™‚ .

But overall, I’m surprised that we don’t feel the need for a TV. When my partner and I want to watch something together, we curl up and watch on our laptop. It’s cozy and what we prefer most of the time. How people change šŸ™‚ . However, every Airbnb we’ve stayed in has had a large television – even if we never turn it on.

Things I Do Need

A Microwave

As you know, we move about every month, and a huge part of experiencing a new location for me is eating the food. During the pandemic, a lot of that experience happened at home through take out and resulted in leftovers. Heating up leftovers without a microwave for some reason, annoys me šŸ™‚ . It dirties additional items (like a pot) and is generally messier and takes more time. No me gusta šŸ™‚ .

I also use a microwave to heat my tea water, if there isn’t a water kettle (yes my partner calls me a heathen for doing so and I don’t care! šŸ™‚ ). Overall, a microwave has been way more key than I ever expected and it’s now on my Airbnb “must have” list.

An In Unit Washer/Dryer

So in all my years of living in NYC and Seattle, I never had an in unit washer/dryer, and now that I’ve experienced it in Airbnbs, I can’t go back šŸ™‚ . At one apartment in New York, there was no washer or dryer even in the building and the rest of our apartments had one that was shared in the basement. Having our own washer/dryer in our Airbnb, especially during a pandemic while we’re avoiding other people, has been a wonderful amenity that I didn’t think I needed.

As for our experiences with them over the past year, we’ve had one Airbnb that made it seem like there was a washer in unit, but it was actually a shared one in the basement (I told the host how they could make that more clear in the listing), and we knew that our current Airbnb in Mexico had a laundry room across our courtyard that others can use, but we’ve never had any issue with that. We also knew that our Phuket, Thailand Airbnb only had a washer, which is not uncommon outside of the US, so we hang dried our clothes on a rack on the balcony, which was reminiscent of my time living in Italy šŸ™‚ .

Also, hilariously I’ve had to take out most of my clothes to hang dry instead of using a dryer since I discovered what those symbols on labels mean and realized they weren’t supposed to be put in a dryer – OOPS! I’m a real adult, I promise šŸ™‚ .

Anyway, one thing having a washer/dryer in the unit obviously helps with, is keeping my belongings that I travel with to a manageable level for a 40L backpack. When we first set out, I had so many clothes that I didn’t need to wash anything for the month we stayed in an Airbnb. Now I’m down to enough that I like to do laundry every two weeks at the longest, and now that I’m running so often and in hot climates where I sweat more, I lean towards once a week. And that’s my ode to in unit washer/dryers šŸ™‚ .

An Extension Cord

This is another thing I didn’t realize would be as useful as it is. We’ve had Airbnbs in 120 year old houses and new condos. We’ve run the gambit and especially for those older places, having an extension cord for each of us has been a lifesaver because at times, those electrical sockets are in the weirdest or the least accessible places.

I like to be able to have all my electronics cords accessible from my bedside table, and some places don’t allow that unless you bring your own extension cord so that’s what we’ve done and it’s been awesome. We use this one in general and this adapterĀ when abroad to handle any type of socket the world throws at me.

Lessons Learned

Scour The Listing

I have a pretty standard checklist while looking at Airbnbs:

  1. Add my filters:
    • Entire Place
    • 1-2 bedroom
    • Amenities: Kitchen, Wifi, AC/Heat, Washer, Outdoor Space
    • Superhost
  2. Look at all the pictures
  3. Read the full description
  4. Read all the reviews
  5. Check the location (e.g. walkable and near grocery stores)

One heads up about Step #2: make sure you look closely at the kitchen specifically in those pictures and also pay attention to what amenities it lists having in Step #3. I’ve found that at times people say a place has a “Kitchen” when it doesn’t even have a stove, which is what defines a kitchen for me šŸ™‚ .

Once I find some places that match my criteria, I put them in a spreadsheet (I know – nerd alert). This spreadsheet allows me to compare the below characteristics on even ground:

  1. Dates Available
  2. Price
  3. Rating
  4. Type (Apartment, House etc)
  5. Neighborhood
  6. Amenities
  7. Pros
  8. Cons

Once I have all that down, it’s much easier to see the upsides to each place and if there are any downsides so we can choose based on the most information possible.

International Electricity

We’ve found in our two international locations (Thailand and Mexico) that electricity is billed separately from the rental cost and is based on usage. I imagine this is only a thing in countries with hot climates and high electric costs, which include those two. However, I wanted to point it out because this was never a thing in any US Airbnb we’ve stayed in.

However, if electric is separate, it is pointed out in the listing (hence the careful reading šŸ™‚ ). I’m currently writing this from Mexico and we asked the hosts in advance what an average usage cost would be before we booked this house so we had an idea of our total costs ahead of time.

Security Deposits

We have only been asked for a security deposit once: at our Thailand Airbnb and it was a whole ‘thing’ šŸ™‚ . They requested the $100 deposit in local cash and payments that are given outside of Airbnb’s platform are apparently against Airbnb’s terms of service .

After a lot of discussion and pushback from the host and also chatting with Airbnb, we decided to give the security deposit in cash as requested and see what happened. Well, I’m happy to report that we received a receipt when providing the deposit, and got all the money back at the end of our stay without incident. Nice!

However, if your host is more willing to play ball, Airbnb does have a Resolution Center where hosts and guests can send money back and forth…though my cynical brain is now wondering if Airbnb wants us to only use their platform so they get a cut…Curious šŸ˜‰ .

Check-In Is Flexible

I’m such a rule follower that it didn’t even occur to me that something like an Airbnb check-in time could be flexible – though luckily I asked šŸ™‚ . At times our flight or train would get in hours before our Airbnb check-in time and when that happened, I would message the host in advance and politely ask if we could check in early. Every single time they’ve said yes.

And the only mishap we had with this was very minor. At our Catskills Airbnb, we arrived the day of a hurricane and found that the linens hadn’t been washed yet because the cleaner was late due to that literal hurricane. She arrived a little after we got there, tidied the place, changed the linens and we were good to go. The host was extremely apologetic even though we said it wasn’t a big deal, especially since they let us in like 4 hours early šŸ™‚ .

You Can Change Your Reservation

I didn’t know this until about halfway through our year of Airbnb living, but you can totally change any reservation you make. It has to be approved by the host, but the two times we’ve changed reservations so far have been accepted immediately. You can change the date or number of days easily on the app.

However: learn from my mistake and check the current cost of the Airbnb before you submit a date change. I didn’t do this with our Thailand Airbnb. We submitted a request to decrease the number of days we were there and we were charged $75 as a result šŸ™‚ . The Airbnb had increased in price since we booked it, so making that change altered our whole reservation to the new price and despite staying less time, we paid more money. We would have been better off just leaving the reservation as is. Oops! Lesson learned.

Bring Your Soap Internationally

Since we set sail on this Airbnb adventure, I’ve always brought a travel size bottle of hair products and body wash to every Airbnb we’ve lived in, but I never needed it…until we got to Thailand. This is an anecdote so let me know if this is not the case for you, but in every US Airbnb, there were always nice leftovers from previous guests – and I don’t mean gross ones in the fridge šŸ™‚ .

Things like conditioner bottles and pantry staples…and sometimes things like unopened butter or eggs in the fridge, which we did appreciate. However, in Thailand, our Airbnb didn’t have any of that. It was the first time I used those products that I brought and had been randomly replenishing to keep them fresh. I had assumed that no Airbnbs would have hair products for example, but that was proven wrong until our first international trip.

Internal Changes

Being A Nomad Increases My Mental Acuity

I didn’t really think it through before we hit the road, that always figuring out a new house and location would constantly keep me on my toes – in a good way. Having to figure out how a new dishwasher or washing machine works (especially when the buttons are in Thai or Spanish!), the local rules and how to get around language barriers mean that I’m always learning something new and staying sharp. When I lived in the same place, everything was basically inertia and I didn’t realize how much until I experienced the exact opposite.

Being An Airbnb Nomad Is Fucking Sweet

My teacher asked me in Spanish class the other day how often I clean my house and I had to think about it a long time because the answer is…Never. Like I do the dishes and generally don’t leave a mess, but I never have to deep clean an apartment the way I did when we lived in a place for a year or more.

Before leaving an Airbnb, we put everything back where we found it, wipe down surfaces, take out the trash and head out the door. I’ve never cleaned so little in my life šŸ™‚ , which I guess makes sense because Airbnb charges a (usually hefty) cleaning fee, but that perk of being an Airbnb nomad didn’t really hit me until that moment. Cleaning is a thing of the past and I love that so much šŸ™‚ . I never have to snake a shower drain again…

The other sweet thing I realized about being an Airbnb nomad might just be a “me” thing, but the places we’ve stayed are all nicer than the apartments we’ve lived in in the past. Like I thought our apartments later in my career were nice and comfortable and I worked hard to make them so, but the lovely Airbnbs we’ve stayed in are the next level.

And logically, that makes sense because they are being reviewed on their comfort among other things, but my place never had as comfy a bed, as nice appliances, outdoor space or as many streaming services as I have now. It’s a lovely and surprisingly fancy existence šŸ™‚ .

Conclusion

So that’s what I learned after more than a full year of being an Airbnb nomad. As I’ve mentioned before, the first year of doing this was a bit of a trial run and I expected to be wishing for more stability and stuff to call my own by now, but that hasn’t happened at all. We’re going to be on the road for the foreseeable future until one or both of us is over it šŸ™‚ . In the meantime, I’m going to keep enjoying this carefree luxury life.

What questions do you have about living in Airbnbs full-time?

32 thoughts on “Lessons Learned After 1 Year Of Airbnb Nomad Life”

  1. YES love this. Lots of positivity here and some unexpected lessons – I would never think to carry an extension cord while travelling, but you’re right, that would be so useful! Fantastic write-up.

    The improvement in mental acuity isn’t a surprise at all. You’re learning new things, visiting new places, speaking new languages, and sleeping better without chronic work stress. Sounds excellent and long may it continue.

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  3. Iā€™ve been impressed by the positive experience youā€™ve had with Airbnb. Iā€™ve heard so many horror stories that Iā€™m hesitant to use it. But it sounds like youā€™re very intentional about your approach to refining and selecting from your options. Love your list of must-haves and your overall strategy. Do you have any other tips for avoiding an Airbnb disaster?

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    1. Just last night I watched the April 25 Rick Steves Monday Night Travel (MNT) session “2022 Trip Planning with the MNT Team”. One of the MNT planners said they never stay at an AirBnB that has less than 30 reviews. I thought that was an interesting number. I know not to stay at an AirBnB with NO reviews, but I think I’ve wanted at least 10 reviews. I will have to consider making 30 my new minimum number of reviews. This same MNT planner said to go with Superhosts only, which I think will definitely be my new normal going forward.

      Here is the link to all the MNT video recordings:

      https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/travel-classes/monday-night-travel

      NOTE: As of 4 pm 4/26/22, the April 25, 2022 recording has not yet been posted.

      I have stayed at multiple AirBnBs both domestically and internationally and have never had a problem.

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      2. I am about to put a cottage and 2 apartments onto Airbnb. They have never been rented before as I have just refurbished them. You say only look at places with reviews – in my case this is CHICKEN AND EGG – never before let so no reviewsšŸ¤”šŸ™„

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        1. Hi Wendy – Other nomads have written about preferring to stay in places without reviews and do so often because it’s usually cheaper. I’m just not willing to do so since I stay places at least a month and need them pre-vetted by many others šŸ™‚ . Good luck with your Airbnbs! I’m sure you’ll get your first reviews soon.

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          1. I too hope things will go well, eventually. It would be great to let for a onth as less work for me šŸ˜œ

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    2. Yeah we’ve *knock on wood* never had a bad Airbnb experience. I am intentional about it like you mentioned and I don’t visit new listings or listings without a lot of reviews, which I think cuts down on that possibility quite a bit.

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  4. Happy Nomad Anniversary! Awesome post! We concur with all your observations! Well, everything except the TV/Chromecast thing. We use a Fire Stick, but it’s literally the first thing we set up after inspecting the Airbnb and testing the wifi. šŸ¤£ We’re nerds! lol! Also, love that travel adapter – might have to buy! šŸ˜

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    1. Happy Nomad Anniversary to y’all as well! And thank you šŸ™‚ .

      That’s interesting! Our places just always already have a Chromecast so it didn’t make sense for us to bring another one. Do your places not usually already have a Chromecast or equivalent? Or do you just prefer switching to yours for ease or another reason?

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      1. We like having our own device because all our accounts are already set up and we don’t have to put our log credentials into someone else’s device.

        We also aren’t big fans of Chromecasts because we don’t like using our phone as remotes (we’re frequent pausers!). The most important reason we like the Fire Stick though is because it works with our VPN meaning we can still access all our US-based services while we’re overseas.

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  5. I have a number of things I look for in an AirBnB:

    1. Is the shower of sufficient size to accommodate my hubby? He’s 5’11” and needs his space. šŸ˜‰
    2. Is the bed at least a queen size? I’m a full size girl and need my space. A king size bed would be a treat!
    3. Does that bed have walkable space around it? If two of its four sides are against the wall, that is a deal breaker.
    4. Does the kitchen have a toaster? Can’t toast my morning English muffin on the stove or in the microwave.
    5. How large is the kitchen sink? Big enough to fit a dinner plate or a frying pan? Do you know how hard it is to wash dishes in a tiny European sized kitchen sink??? Is it a divided sink? I’m not a talented enough dishwasher to use the same single sink for washing AND rinsing.
    6. Since we are both old and decrepit, is the unit on ground level (without any exterior stairs) or fully accessible by an elevator (that stops at the unit’s floor level)?
    7. Depending upon length of stay, is there an in-unit washer and dryer (a separate machine dryer, not just a “dryer” rack or the drying cycle of a combo washer/dryer appliance).
    8. Is the decor something I can live with for the length of our stay, or does it produce and immediate gag reflex?
    9. Depending upon length/purpose of stay, is the location within a fairly short walking distance of public transportation, a grocery store, and/or restaurants?
    10. We prefer a one bedroom rather than a studio so there is opportunity for quiet, alone time inside when needed.

    Of course, always, always, ALWAYS read the description, amenities, and reviews VERY carefully. If you have ANY questions about ANYTHING, email the host with your very specific questions. I have received timely responses whenever I’ve emailed a host with my many (perhaps apparently off the wall) questions.

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  6. Great writeup, Purple!

    I haven’t spent a consecutive year in Airbnbs, but I added up our dozens of past stays and came up with about 7 months in the last 7 years.

    I’m with you on the importance of a microwave, and it’s really helpful to have a washing machine. Dryers seem much less common once you leave the U.S., though. Most European units have combo units that supposedly dry clothes, but seldom actually do.

    We’re in an Airbnb in Galveston at the moment, and we’ll be at another in Portland, ME next month. Any best tips on places to go and things to do?

    Cheers!
    -PoF

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  7. I am curious as you are moving all the time, without a permanent home, have you figured out a way to be covered by medical insurance in the U.S.? I just don’t yet see a way of being a nomad and being adequately insured. Thanks for this post. It’s really helpful.

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      1. I see. This would be a bit too tenuous for me. Haha. I know of World Nomads. I think I may have used them in the past. Thanks, Purple.

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  8. Awesome! Great update. It’s so impressive you’re living this way. I think in Thailand, the cleaners take everything that’s left. They make very little and extra soap and shampoo are useful.
    I’d love to live like you guys for a year. We’ll see if we can do it after RB40 goes off to college.

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  9. I also think that an extension cord is a very smart idea. I’m almost a month in nomading around hotels in Western Europe and I find that while some hotels have plugs in convenient places, other hotels may have just one plug in an inconvenient place.

    Definitely will bring an extension cord / power strip next time so I can easily just plug in all my electronics no matter which hotel we end up in (though it’s always sweet when you run into a hotel that has a dedicated work desk with like 3 plugs and your besides has a USB wall plug).

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  10. Congratulations on a year of doing this airbnb lifestyle! I’m renting a place now in Argentina that is perfect aside from lacking a microwave. It drives me nuts and I’m realizing how much I need it for day to day things.

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  11. I first found this blog because I googled living in airbnbs a few months ago! Glad to hear you’re experience has been great.

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  12. We have a similar checklist for booking an Airbnb. Since we started traveling with our children we always need a washing machine šŸ™‚ I may have missed it, but did you comment on how far in advance you book? I find that to check all the boxes I am most comfortable booking far in advance to avoid fomo on properties that are booked up.

    Reply

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