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> Airbnb is a parasite and one of the first things cities should look at when rethinking their tourism strategies. As someone who has traveled extensively, I a

> Airbnb is a parasite and one of the first things cities should look at when rethinking their tourism strategies. As someone who has traveled extensively, I agree entirely about "disneyland syndrome", and I'm one of those travelers that tries to avoid such things. I generally don't travel to places which are tourist destinations, in the first place. Regardless, my mode of travel is to try to meet people, stay long enough that I can live normally as a local, mostly buy groceries and cook, and work during the week only going out in the evenings and weekends. AirBnB is essential to the way I travel, because it allows me to rent an apartment for a month that has normal apartment amenities like a basic kitchen. Many of the places I've visited have few or no hotels. One place I actually did stay in a hotel... the only hotel in the entire town, which also had the only restaurant in the entire town in it. In communities like this, someone offering you a room in their home or letting you rent their apartment while they are away is a critical pathway to being able to travel there in the first place and I don't think attracts the sort of people expecting a packaged experience. From my perspective, AirBnB has enabled me and others like me to connect to the world and experience things that would be impossible otherwise, and at the same time has provided opportunities for those we interacted with along the way (I leveraged my network while traveling to help many of the people I met, connecting a budding craft brewer with resources to help them succeed, introducing a very good local photographer to english-language resources online to let them sell their photography, connecting someone who wanted to come to the US as an SWE with the right people so they could get hired and have their H1B sponsored, etc). It's not really AirBnB, or rather what AirBnB is in essence, that's the issue, it's that it creates and enables a pathway for individuals to skirt location regulations to make a profit. Many of the places I visited had no regulations against short-term rentals because the idea that someone might do such a thing wasn't really on the mind of local regulators, but in key tourist destinations this is very much on the mind of local regulators, not the least of which because they can tax tourism directly via stays.

LurkingPenguin 5y ago
> Regardless, my mode of travel is to try to meet people, stay long enough that I can live normally as a local... The thing is that as a tourist/traveler, it's not all about you (or me). You need to consider and be respectful of the impact your experience can have on the very locals you want to live like. Your desire to have a kitchen is reasonably not more important than a local's desire to not see the apartment next to them converted into a illegal short-term rental where random strangers routinely come and go, or to be priced out of the market because it's more profitable for landlords to convert properties into illegal short-term rentals. Incidentally, "living like a local" is about more than having a kitchen and this is in my opinion one of the most overused terms among the nomad set, but that said, if you really want to stay somewhere longer term and have a visa that lets you do so, you can try to rent a property legitimately. In fact, finding a legitimate rental, meeting a landlord, signing a lease, etc. is a perfect opportunity to "live like a local". > Many of the places I've visited have few or no hotels. One place I actually did stay in a hotel... the only hotel in the entire town, which also had the only restaurant in the entire town in it. In communities like this, someone offering you a room in their home or letting you rent their apartment while they are away is a critical pathway to being able to travel there in the first place and I don't think attracts the sort of people expecting a packaged experience. As you said, some places don't even have regulations because they don't see many tourists. It's one thing to show up in a town that's off the beaten track and be introduced to someone who will rent you a room for a few nights. It's another to have property owners interested in maximizing their earnings advertising their property to every Tom, Dick and Harry using the internet.
- tristor 5y ago
  That's a fair point, I suppose while I am not Tom, Dick, or Harry, it is also a significant barrier to not know if you will have accommodations ahead of arrival, so for those off the beaten path places AirBnB is pretty important. FWIW, I have in fact signed leases and stayed in places with "legitimate" rentals (I think AirBnB is only illegitimate where it violates law, which is not everywhere). A minimum stay for me most places has been about a month, in some I've stayed over a year. It depends on what is allowed by the visa I am able to obtain and whether or not I find that there is reason to stay longer. I would consider what I do "medium-term" rather than short-term. I can't necessarily sign a 13-month lease everywhere I go, but I also am there much longer than the typical tourist which is between 3 and 7 days.
  - LurkingPenguin 5y ago
    > I suppose while I am not Tom, Dick, or Harry... How are you not Tom, Dick or Harry? When I first started traveling, I believed the "I'm different" thing too, but it's a bit hubristic. Tourists come in all shapes and sizes these days and there are a lot of location-independent folks ("nomads") who will move around every few weeks or months, not days. In my experience, most "off the beaten path" places that have Airbnb listings almost always have at least one legitimate hotel, hostel, or homestay. In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest that most places that have Airbnbs aren't nearly as "off the beaten path" as you're telling yourself.
    - tristor 5y ago
      > In my experience, most "off the beaten path" places that have Airbnb listings almost always have at least one legitimate hotel, hostel, or homestay. In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest that most places that have Airbnbs aren't nearly as "off the beaten path" as you're telling yourself. I think that's kind of my whole point, to some degree. In the Age of the Internet, the world is more connected than it has ever been before, which means the path is less beaten by roadways than it is by wires and signals from wireless towers. If a place has any form of reasonable Internet connectivity, it's probably not really that far "off the beaten path", but that's also essential as a basis for any reasonable accommodation. So, no, I'm not visiting remote tribes in the Amazonian jungle, but I also wouldn't for many reasons including ethical considerations. Visiting a rural village in the countryside of a country not known for tourism, but that nevertheless has broadband Internet, is not as far off the beaten path, but it is still outside the awareness of typical tourists. The world being more connected is generally a good thing, and I'd say a net good, but it's not all roses and cherries, and in fact there are many negative externalities to this connectivity as well. AirBnB provides people a way to arbitrage those externalities, but it's not wholly evil either, it also has positive attributes that can benefit both parties.

LurkingPenguin 5y ago

> Regardless, my mode of travel is to try to meet people, stay long enough that I can live normally as a local... The thing is that as a tourist/traveler, it's not all about you (or me). You need to consider and be respectful of the impact your experience can have on the very locals you want to live like. Your desire to have a kitchen is reasonably not more important than a local's desire to not see the apartment next to them converted into a illegal short-term rental where random strangers routinely come and go, or to be priced out of the market because it's more profitable for landlords to convert properties into illegal short-term rentals. Incidentally, "living like a local" is about more than having a kitchen and this is in my opinion one of the most overused terms among the nomad set, but that said, if you really want to stay somewhere longer term and have a visa that lets you do so, you can try to rent a property legitimately. In fact, finding a legitimate rental, meeting a landlord, signing a lease, etc. is a perfect opportunity to "live like a local". > Many of the places I've visited have few or no hotels. One place I actually did stay in a hotel... the only hotel in the entire town, which also had the only restaurant in the entire town in it. In communities like this, someone offering you a room in their home or letting you rent their apartment while they are away is a critical pathway to being able to travel there in the first place and I don't think attracts the sort of people expecting a packaged experience. As you said, some places don't even have regulations because they don't see many tourists. It's one thing to show up in a town that's off the beaten track and be introduced to someone who will rent you a room for a few nights. It's another to have property owners interested in maximizing their earnings advertising their property to every Tom, Dick and Harry using the internet.

tristor 5y ago
That's a fair point, I suppose while I am not Tom, Dick, or Harry, it is also a significant barrier to not know if you will have accommodations ahead of arrival, so for those off the beaten path places AirBnB is pretty important. FWIW, I have in fact signed leases and stayed in places with "legitimate" rentals (I think AirBnB is only illegitimate where it violates law, which is not everywhere). A minimum stay for me most places has been about a month, in some I've stayed over a year. It depends on what is allowed by the visa I am able to obtain and whether or not I find that there is reason to stay longer. I would consider what I do "medium-term" rather than short-term. I can't necessarily sign a 13-month lease everywhere I go, but I also am there much longer than the typical tourist which is between 3 and 7 days.
- LurkingPenguin 5y ago
  > I suppose while I am not Tom, Dick, or Harry... How are you not Tom, Dick or Harry? When I first started traveling, I believed the "I'm different" thing too, but it's a bit hubristic. Tourists come in all shapes and sizes these days and there are a lot of location-independent folks ("nomads") who will move around every few weeks or months, not days. In my experience, most "off the beaten path" places that have Airbnb listings almost always have at least one legitimate hotel, hostel, or homestay. In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest that most places that have Airbnbs aren't nearly as "off the beaten path" as you're telling yourself.
  - tristor 5y ago
    > In my experience, most "off the beaten path" places that have Airbnb listings almost always have at least one legitimate hotel, hostel, or homestay. In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest that most places that have Airbnbs aren't nearly as "off the beaten path" as you're telling yourself. I think that's kind of my whole point, to some degree. In the Age of the Internet, the world is more connected than it has ever been before, which means the path is less beaten by roadways than it is by wires and signals from wireless towers. If a place has any form of reasonable Internet connectivity, it's probably not really that far "off the beaten path", but that's also essential as a basis for any reasonable accommodation. So, no, I'm not visiting remote tribes in the Amazonian jungle, but I also wouldn't for many reasons including ethical considerations. Visiting a rural village in the countryside of a country not known for tourism, but that nevertheless has broadband Internet, is not as far off the beaten path, but it is still outside the awareness of typical tourists. The world being more connected is generally a good thing, and I'd say a net good, but it's not all roses and cherries, and in fact there are many negative externalities to this connectivity as well. AirBnB provides people a way to arbitrage those externalities, but it's not wholly evil either, it also has positive attributes that can benefit both parties.