Airbnb vs. Traditional Hotels vs. Hostelworld: Which place to stay is right for you?

Like hotels, anyone who travels knows Airbnb. Airbnb offers unique stays in major cities and small towns the world over. Airbnb offers the convenience of booking and managing your lodging through an easy to use app.

However, many Airbnb options can be expensive and have built in fees. In some cases, you are staying in someone’s home. One time, I stayed in an Airbnb in Philadelphia. There was a paper with instructions from the host to set the burglar alarm when I left the house.

So I set the burglar alarm when I left. When I got home, I entered in the code to deactivate the alarm, but it didn’t work. I got so scared and it was so loud! The host called me and then texted me the code to shut it off. I had bothered all the neighbors and was nervous the police were going to come and try and arrest me. I was really frustrated that the host had changed the code but didn’t update the code on the instruction sheet.

In another Airbnb, my girlfriend and I stayed with a retired lawyer in his cabin in the White Mountains in New Hampshire. It was a three-story house, and his bedroom was on the third floor and ours was on the second floor.

I am not even joking. The first morning, my girlfriend and I were laying in bed, and we heard a weird gushing sound, like water was falling and hitting the ground. By our last day, we figured out that the guy was peeing off of his balcony!!!!!!!!!!!! It was so gross! I left him an ok review on Airbnb, but I sent him a message saying, he probably shouldn’t do that anymore (what a creep).

I remember when Airbnb just started out. It was really cool, and really affordable. It was the way to travel and save money to just crash in someone’s spare room. There are still some Airbnbs out there that are very affordable! But overall, Airbnb has become pretty posh. You can often find just as good a deal with a hotel. So watch out for those cleaning fees.