Nomads! Welcome back to another weekly blog post!
Seeing that there are so many new opportunities of home-sharing and accommodations for lodging, I’m here to explain what routes to take when determining where to stay.
Airbnb has become one of the most popular accommodation sources for a valid reason. They’re a great alternative if you’re too young to book a hotel or too nervous to stay in a hostel. I’m going to be honest, for most of the cities we visited, we stayed in Airbnbs. I will say too, our first “outside London” trip was to Glasgow, which was also where I stayed in my first Airbnb. If you’re new to the concept of Airbnb, it’s basically an app in which people rent out their homes for travelers: sometimes their private rooms and sometimes they’re full apartments. Each time we used Airbnb, we stuck with booking vacant apartments, mainly because of the number of us traveling each weekend. Back to Glasgow, though. As I said, our trip to Glasgow was my first experience staying in an Airbnb and I was pleasantly surprised. We went ahead and searched for places near the city center and that were posted by “superhosts”—aka people who have some of the highest reviews for that area. We found this Airbnb and I have to say completely lucked out because it was near the “downtown” area of Glasgow and it had great accommodations. Although my flatmates and I had great experiences with Airbnb in Glasgow, I will say, be cautious of the apartment that you’re booking. Read all of the reviews before booking. We did have a few cumbersome experiences with Airbnb throughout our time abroad as well. A few weeks in, we decided to book a trip to Geneva, Switzerland. Upon arrival to the Genevan airport, we discovered that our Airbnb was booked in Genève, France, therefore we had to trek from France to Switzerland each morning to go site-seeing. Although that wasn’t Airbnb’s fault, it goes to say make sure you’re booking your Airbnb for the right country…
Another fun experience was during our week-long fall break excursion. My flatmates and I decided we’d visit Norway, Prague, then Berlin. Might I just say, the Airbnb in Prague was great! There was ample space for the four of us, a good neighborhood, and a friendly host. As for Norway and Berlin, let’s just say I have some caution stories to hopefully keep you from experiencing what happened to us. First with Norway (which is a beautiful country might I add!), we booked an Airbnb in a more residential area as it was slightly cheaper than booking in the city. Our flight got in later in the evening so it was relatively dark and our taxi had just dropped us off on the street of our Airbnb. After about a half hour of scouring the area for the key (which many hosts hide instead of meeting up with the visitors) we finally found it and made our way into what seemed like a sketchy apartment. And when I say seemed sketchy, I mean it was SKETCHY. We stepped inside to find that there was only one bed resting on the floor; the sheets and comforter were thrown around as if someone had just slept there; the towels were damp and dirty; and the large picture window looking out to other houses had no curtains or blinds to close over. That said, we spent the night “sleeping” bundled up with all of our jackets and clothes and hats on and proceeded to leave the Airbnb bright and early the next morning. If you think that’s interesting, just wait until you hear about our Berlin Airbnb experience.
Sidenote: I want to clarify that these stories of my experience with Airbnb are not to scare you or ward you off from using their app, rather I find it necessary to emphasize the importance of researching the location, accommodations, and reviews. If anything, reading reviews is the most important thing to take from all this.
Okay, back to the stories! So from Norway we visited Prague, which was a great Airbnb! There wasn’t much to say about it other than it was nice and convenient for our several day excursion. As for Berlin…oh Berlin. I want to love the city. It was rich in history and fun to explore. But our experience with Airbnb hindered the great end to our trip. We booked the Airbnb in an area close to the city center; it was supposed to be a large apartment complex and we’d meet at the nearby restaurant to obtain the key. First, we received the key and proceeded to try and open the large gated doors leading into the apartment. Our time spent outside in a dark, cold, foreign city trying to open the immaculate gate to our home for the next few nights was eerily greeted by this man sitting in his car right outside the gate. At the time, we found it particularly sketchy that this middle-age man was just sitting in his car for the 30-40 minutes spent trying to get inside the complex. But our eagerness to get inside and sleep were overbearing our fear of this stalker-esque man. We spent this time frantically calling and messaging the owner, to which we received no response. Finally, we got the gate opened and proceeded to hike up to the apartment. Now was the fun part. During this time, we continually tried to use the keys to open the door. No such luck. We spent about another 20 minutes trying to open the door, contact the owner, and finally contact our site director (who was back in London, so she couldn’t do much). We knocked on neighbors’ doors trying to ask for help. No one answered. We were beginning to feel like we were being scammed of our booking. Finally the owner responded to us and explained that he was out of the country, but that his friend had been in the restaurant watching us scramble the whole time. Still, we received no help. Once hearing that, and feeling extremely unsafe by the man sitting in the car (who was still there after all our attempts) to knowing that someone was watching us struggle and didn’t feel the urge to help, we knew we had to get out of that area quickly. My flatmate ordered an Uber and I booked us the cheapest hotel so that we had someone to stay for at least the night. All of that said, we spent the brunt of our Berlin trip messaging back and forth fighting with the owner and complaining to Airbnb. We never found out if that was the owner sitting in the dark car watching us the entire time. I personally am convinced it was him. But as fearful and traumatic as this story was, I don’t this to steer you from using Airbnb. Rather, this should hopefully lead you to being more aware of who you’re booking with and the quality of the place you’re settling with. ***Read the reviews*** I know I’ve said this several times so far, but that is the best advice I feel I can give when stating how you should go about using Airbnb or any house-sharing app.
Although I’ve spent majority of this post focusing on Airbnbs, I want to touch on the use of hotels. I know in my case, none of the people I traveled with were 21, so we didn’t think we’d be able to book hotels while traveling through Europe. I’m here to tell you that in most cases you can book hotels! As mentioned before, we ended up booking a hotel last minute in Berlin and it worked out really well. Sadly, though, it wasn’t until the end of our study abroad experience that we discovered we could be booking hotels. We also ended up staying in a Best Western in Oslo, Norway for the remainder of our stay since the Airbnb was slightly gross (**sarcasm**). That said, I highly suggest you look into booking hotels in some cases as well. We noticed that they were oftentimes in line with the price of an Airbnb, therefore if you’re a little weary of staying in someone’s home, or want to avoid hostels, check out hotels before settling with something you’re uncomfortable with.
Although the route of this post geared more towards Airbnbs, I find that lodging apps are more common when traveling internationally today. Don’t hesitate to test out different styles of accommodations through your adventures abroad! See what works and what doesn’t with your travel style. Often the not-so-great experiences are the ones that leave the lasting impact…in a good way (I promise)!
Comment below any wild experiences you’ve had with accommodations while studying, or traveling, abroad!
Navigating Nomad 
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