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I think can explain one possible reason. tl;dr: For long stays, as hotels typically don't offer home-like experience. I have two typical modes of travel. One

I think can explain one possible reason. tl;dr: For long stays, as hotels typically don't offer home-like experience. I have two typical modes of travel. One is a short (1-2 week) trip somewhere, for some business (work or personal). A hotel is totally fine, but I still check both hotels and Airbnb for price and feature comparison. In this scenario I don't need a proper kitchen but I still want a microwave, a proper table, a decent chair, and good Internet connectivity - which sound like some basics but aren't exactly common. But, yeah, a hotel is typically a good option. Airbnb quality seem to degrade, so I'm typically looking at the hotels those days. E.g. my last trip was to San Diego, CA and Airbnb offerings I've seen were much worse (based on my personal preferences) than similarly priced hotels. The other mode is multiple months of living somewhere else - like as in "digital nomad". Hotels typically cease to work for this purpose. For those scenario I want a full apartment (or a house) to myself, I don't need any room service (I can wipe dust and vacuum on my own, thank you), but I want something comparable to home. A full kitchen (with a dishwasher and an oven), a good working area (separate area - ideally a dedicated room, with favorable lighting conditions, normal height sturdy table, an ergonomic chair, etc.), a separate rest area (comfy non-leather couch and a correctly placed big TV with an accessible HDMI input), proximity to a grocery store, etc. It is very hard to find merely a suitable place - I spend multiple days, sometimes weeks, going through the listings, looking at the photos, checking neighborhoods etc. - but at least there's a chance to find something. I do check hotels (because why not) but most of the time they're simply not an option at all - they're tailored for very different use cases and simply don't offer this kind of service. And, well, my other alternatives are local classifieds and searching Google Maps for advertised rentals (which I do), but at least Airbnb has some standards so it's my first option. Last year I had a 2-month trip to Tbilisi, Georgia and the apartments I've found on Airbnb were almost perfect - I'm sure my experience would've been worse (and significantly costlier) if we would've stayed in a hotel. Best kind of Airbnb is when a host had a place for themselves to live, but their circumstances had changed (e.g. they bought a second property) and now they're renting it out. Such places are simply made for living. Worst kind is a property bought specifically for renting out.

cbozeman 4y ago
So here's how I attack these issues you've mentioned: Extended Stay America. Almost every large city has one ("large" defined as more than 100,000 - 200,000 people). You can book for months at a time if necessary. They have WiFi at all locations, however... I just donate to The Calyx Institute. My $750 pledge bought me a year of Sprint (now T-Mobile, and far more reliable) cellular access with a 5G WiFi hotspot and absolutely no data cap, ever. I ran 1.1 TiB through that access point one month and never had a moment's trouble. Long story short, Sprint bought Clearwire, Clearwire had a deal with the federal government to provide non-profits with cheap unlimited (actual unlimited) 4G / LTE hotspots and no fuckery (no slow-downs after X gigabytes transferred, no "preferred tier" customers like how MVNOs are second tier to the host provider). When Sprint bought Clearwire, the Feds only approved it with the provision Sprint had to honor the deal. Now that T-Mobile owns Sprint, they have to also honor the deal.
- drdaeman 4y ago
  > Extended Stay America The third word is the key. ;) I've added a bit to my comment after the initial posting - an example of my last long-term stay. It was in Georgia (Sakartvelo, not the US state), and it's a good but developing country - to best of my awareness they don't really have anything similar, or at least my searches hadn't found it. So I suppose it depends on a country. But you're absolutely correct, Extended Stay America is probably a very good option. When I've immigrated to the US, it was very high on my list. I still went with an Airbnb because I needed to find a new permanent home anyway (so I was renting short-term only as I was looking for a job), and Airbnb was in a more favorable location as I needed things in a walking distance (had no never driven a car at the time, hah), and maybe that was a mistake - it was OK but not exactly great. Anyway, I do have a home in the US now (and love the country) and I'm not really exploring the country just yet - but if/when I'll have a long-term trip somewhere else here, I'll definitely consider Extended Stay America. So far my US trips were all fairly short though. And thanks for the tip about The Calyx Internet Membership. I don't have use for this right now, but this might come in handy! BTW, does anyone know - is there something similar in Mexico, in safe(r) areas, ideally a gated community? This is the next country life is sending me to - because of some family circumstances I'll have spend some months down there...

cbozeman 4y ago

So here's how I attack these issues you've mentioned: Extended Stay America. Almost every large city has one ("large" defined as more than 100,000 - 200,000 people). You can book for months at a time if necessary. They have WiFi at all locations, however... I just donate to The Calyx Institute. My $750 pledge bought me a year of Sprint (now T-Mobile, and far more reliable) cellular access with a 5G WiFi hotspot and absolutely no data cap, ever. I ran 1.1 TiB through that access point one month and never had a moment's trouble. Long story short, Sprint bought Clearwire, Clearwire had a deal with the federal government to provide non-profits with cheap unlimited (actual unlimited) 4G / LTE hotspots and no fuckery (no slow-downs after X gigabytes transferred, no "preferred tier" customers like how MVNOs are second tier to the host provider). When Sprint bought Clearwire, the Feds only approved it with the provision Sprint had to honor the deal. Now that T-Mobile owns Sprint, they have to also honor the deal.

drdaeman 4y ago
> Extended Stay America The third word is the key. ;) I've added a bit to my comment after the initial posting - an example of my last long-term stay. It was in Georgia (Sakartvelo, not the US state), and it's a good but developing country - to best of my awareness they don't really have anything similar, or at least my searches hadn't found it. So I suppose it depends on a country. But you're absolutely correct, Extended Stay America is probably a very good option. When I've immigrated to the US, it was very high on my list. I still went with an Airbnb because I needed to find a new permanent home anyway (so I was renting short-term only as I was looking for a job), and Airbnb was in a more favorable location as I needed things in a walking distance (had no never driven a car at the time, hah), and maybe that was a mistake - it was OK but not exactly great. Anyway, I do have a home in the US now (and love the country) and I'm not really exploring the country just yet - but if/when I'll have a long-term trip somewhere else here, I'll definitely consider Extended Stay America. So far my US trips were all fairly short though. And thanks for the tip about The Calyx Internet Membership. I don't have use for this right now, but this might come in handy! BTW, does anyone know - is there something similar in Mexico, in safe(r) areas, ideally a gated community? This is the next country life is sending me to - because of some family circumstances I'll have spend some months down there...