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> I’ve spent a lot of summer trips hiking around small vacation towns in Colorado, and I’ve always found regular hotels to be a great way to do it. Occasionally

> I’ve spent a lot of summer trips hiking around small vacation towns in Colorado, and I’ve always found regular hotels to be a great way to do it. Occasionally I need to drive a bit more, but it’s not too bad. That sounds nice, and it suits a lot of people just fine. But try doing that with a family, and on a limited budget. I'll give you an example: last year I "rented" my own place for a week with family. We crammed thirteen of us into our house (it's properly equipped to sleep 12 but we've never had that many aside from our own family). My father-in-law took us out to dinner the first night, and we ate breakfast at restaurants most mornings. The cost of food was likely over a thousand dollars for the week, but it could easily have been double or triple that if we'd eaten out every day. As it was, some of our money went to the local grocery store instead of restaurants, and we were able to afford a week-long vacation instead of just a weekend. You can't do this in a hotel with mini-fridge and a microwave. If you want to bring your family on a week-long vacation in the Colorado Mountains, and if you're not wealthy, then you do it by renting my house, which has a full kitchen, enough rooms, beds, and foldouts for a large family, and costs half or even a quarter of what the same space a hotel would cost. So it's not that hotels are worse than vacation rentals. They're just different. They serve different markets. If places like mine didn't exist, the groups and families that stay there aren't going to stay in hotels instead; they're not going to come to this town at all, because hotels can't provide comfortable longer-duration vacations that are also affordable for most people. This is extremely important for ski vacations. Skiing is expensive enough as it is, that most people can afford just a few days a year with the hotel, food, and fuel costs that come with it. But my place can make it downright cheap in comparison.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago
In a hotel room with an attached suite, this isn’t very hard. Most in the group can stay in small economy rooms, then use the suite for group things or big meals. My extended family (usually groups of 20+, with various budgets) does this also for beach vacations to book oceanside hotels pretty cheaply, and we also make use of shared spaces, like picnic areas or large table spaces you can use for free at some lodges. I’ve found that groceries in and around big ski centers are often much more expensive than low-end takeout or a pizza.. plus you have to have someone in the group spend time cooking and cleaning instead of just enjoying the trip. Personally, if my budget was too limited to avoid that, or I couldn’t afford one suite at the hotel, it would be a sign that it’s not a financially good idea to plan the trip so soon and I should save money longer before going. The trade-offs are different for everybody, which makes me feel like these just-so anecdotes simply should just be omitted from any discussion about the overall scumminess of Airbnb business practices & lobbying vs hotels.
- nate_meurer 8y ago
  Hey, if you're ok with fast food and take-out, that's great. Nothing wrong with that, and it gives you flexibility. But if you have to do it in a hotel up here in the mountains, you'll still spend multiples more money than you will at a place like mine -- a place that also gives you a full kitchen. > you have to have someone in the group spend time cooking and cleaning instead of just enjoying the trip. That person is me. I love to cook, and I assure you it's quite possible to enjoy a vacation while making crepes for your friends. :) > it would be a sign that it’s not a financially good idea to plan the trip so soon and I should save money longer before going. Or, if you were able to stay in a home instead of a hotel, you could save enough money to make the trip affordable now, instead of waiting until later in life to enjoy it. It seems like you might just really like hotels. I think that's fine, and I think a lot of people agree with you. Vacations are what you make of them, and it sounds like you've really got your act together. I admire that. But it also seems like you're trying to apply your own standards and experience generally to everyone else. I'm pretty sure if you asked the folks who rented my place for a week over Christmas what they think, they'll say they'd rather not pay twice as much money for a couple of small hotel rooms in Dillon with no kitchen. Because like it or not, that's my competition.
  - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
    > “Or, if you were able to stay in a home instead of a hotel, you could save enough money to make the trip affordable now, instead of waiting until later in life to enjoy it.” I’m saying if I need to book a house rental because saving on the margins with home cooking might make or break my ability to afford the vacation, then I clearly don’t have enough money for the trip to be a responsible purchase until saving more. So almost by definition, considerations that happen at exactly that margin decision boundary aren’t very applicable for reasoning between the two options. > “That person is me. I love to cook, and I assure you it's quite possible to enjoy a vacation while making crepes for your friends. :)” I love cooking too, but it ruins a vacation if I have to cook, as opposed to getting to cook, particularly meaning I would spend much more on high-end ingredients to make special meals that are much more expensive than eating at even medium-quality restaurants.. plus you still end up wasting vacation time on clean up and prep like chopping, or if things need to bake a while then someone’s stuck in the kitchen potentially long before the meal. Any way you look at it, unless you’re doing something like a cabin vacation where all the recreation is right in and around your lodging all day, then needing to devote money and time to grocery shopping, prep, cooking and clean up is a pretty expensive chore in terms of time & money to commit to during a vacation. Clearly even if some people like it, you can imagine a lot of other people don’t see that as an effective trade-off.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago

In a hotel room with an attached suite, this isn’t very hard. Most in the group can stay in small economy rooms, then use the suite for group things or big meals. My extended family (usually groups of 20+, with various budgets) does this also for beach vacations to book oceanside hotels pretty cheaply, and we also make use of shared spaces, like picnic areas or large table spaces you can use for free at some lodges. I’ve found that groceries in and around big ski centers are often much more expensive than low-end takeout or a pizza.. plus you have to have someone in the group spend time cooking and cleaning instead of just enjoying the trip. Personally, if my budget was too limited to avoid that, or I couldn’t afford one suite at the hotel, it would be a sign that it’s not a financially good idea to plan the trip so soon and I should save money longer before going. The trade-offs are different for everybody, which makes me feel like these just-so anecdotes simply should just be omitted from any discussion about the overall scumminess of Airbnb business practices & lobbying vs hotels.

nate_meurer 8y ago
Hey, if you're ok with fast food and take-out, that's great. Nothing wrong with that, and it gives you flexibility. But if you have to do it in a hotel up here in the mountains, you'll still spend multiples more money than you will at a place like mine -- a place that also gives you a full kitchen. > you have to have someone in the group spend time cooking and cleaning instead of just enjoying the trip. That person is me. I love to cook, and I assure you it's quite possible to enjoy a vacation while making crepes for your friends. :) > it would be a sign that it’s not a financially good idea to plan the trip so soon and I should save money longer before going. Or, if you were able to stay in a home instead of a hotel, you could save enough money to make the trip affordable now, instead of waiting until later in life to enjoy it. It seems like you might just really like hotels. I think that's fine, and I think a lot of people agree with you. Vacations are what you make of them, and it sounds like you've really got your act together. I admire that. But it also seems like you're trying to apply your own standards and experience generally to everyone else. I'm pretty sure if you asked the folks who rented my place for a week over Christmas what they think, they'll say they'd rather not pay twice as much money for a couple of small hotel rooms in Dillon with no kitchen. Because like it or not, that's my competition.
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  > “Or, if you were able to stay in a home instead of a hotel, you could save enough money to make the trip affordable now, instead of waiting until later in life to enjoy it.” I’m saying if I need to book a house rental because saving on the margins with home cooking might make or break my ability to afford the vacation, then I clearly don’t have enough money for the trip to be a responsible purchase until saving more. So almost by definition, considerations that happen at exactly that margin decision boundary aren’t very applicable for reasoning between the two options. > “That person is me. I love to cook, and I assure you it's quite possible to enjoy a vacation while making crepes for your friends. :)” I love cooking too, but it ruins a vacation if I have to cook, as opposed to getting to cook, particularly meaning I would spend much more on high-end ingredients to make special meals that are much more expensive than eating at even medium-quality restaurants.. plus you still end up wasting vacation time on clean up and prep like chopping, or if things need to bake a while then someone’s stuck in the kitchen potentially long before the meal. Any way you look at it, unless you’re doing something like a cabin vacation where all the recreation is right in and around your lodging all day, then needing to devote money and time to grocery shopping, prep, cooking and clean up is a pretty expensive chore in terms of time & money to commit to during a vacation. Clearly even if some people like it, you can imagine a lot of other people don’t see that as an effective trade-off.