In Search of the Perfect Airbnb
Bom Dia from Olhão, Portugal! We’re settling in here to our newest month long home. In many ways, this is our best Airbnb to date. We have space! Two bedrooms, a kitchen with an island, and a huge terrace. We’re just missing one key criteria…neighborhood! So what are those key criteria we use when searching for a month long accommodation? What have we learned over the last five months?
Location is Key for Airbnb
As they say in real estate: Location, Location, Location! For us, and for most people booking Airbnbs for vacation, the location of your temporary home is a top factor when booking. We like to be fairly close to the city center. For us, just like vacationers, we want to be near enough to the sites and restaurants that we can walk there within 5-10 minutes. But, we want to be just far enough away that the noise from those sites and restaurants don’t keep us up all night long! We also layer on access to grocery stores. Can we walk? Will there be sidewalks along the way? Our ideal is a super market within a 1 mile walk for larger grocery hauls, and smaller markets within a few blocks for our daily shops.
Location is is really in my top two criteria when searching for accommodation. It is a balance between location and cost first and foremost!
Walking the swinging bridge to the produce market in Puerto Vallarta. It was only ½ mile, but involved 13 flights of stairs each way! Might have been a slight location miss.
Using Filters When Booking Airbnb
Once I’ve narrowed in on a location and have options within our budget, I’ll start to apply my filters. I use a standard set of filters in Airbnb for each rental. Those are:
Entire House: We’re not interested in sharing! We like our space
Bedrooms, Bathrooms, and Beds: Right now while we’re working we like to have a separate bedroom instead of a studio. This may continue even after we stop working. We’re together a lot and it is nice to have our own space sometimes!
Amenities:
Wifi - Of course!
Kitchen - Maybe in SE Asia we won’t need one, but here in Europe, we like to cook! It saves money…and our waistline!
Washer - We’d love a dryer, and were pleasently surprised in a few of our Airbnbs that we had it. But we’re realistic, and many more places here in Europe only have a washer. We’ve become pros at line drying!
Air Conditioning/Heating - This is a lesson learned! From now on, if we’re somewhere that will get above 80F, we’re going to have A/C. And if it gets below 50? We want heat. Here is Portugal it is fairly common to not have any type of central heating, or even room heating. In our last Airbnb we only had space heaters. And the buildings are built very inefficiently. We. Were. Cold.
Designated Work Space - This is something I always look for, even if I don’t filter for it. We need places for both of us to work. Ideal is if there is a kitchen/dining room table and another desk in the bedroom. We’re both on virtual conference calls quite a bit, so having a quiet space for each of us is important! In some of the places that wasn’t an option…so working from the bed covers us in a pinch!
Our clothes dried so fast in the Mexican sun and 80°F temps!
The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly in Airbnbs
We’ve definitely learned a lot from the last eight rentals! Here’s what we’ve learned.
First and Foremost: We need four walls!! While we got a great tan in Puerto Vallarta, our third “open air” Airbnb was not for the faint of heart! Bugs, coatis, lizards, and no hot water in the kitchen was roughing it a bit too much for us!
With only 3 walls, our suntanning spot was next to our kitchen and our bedroom!
Read the Reviews: Before we started full time travel, I had a strict 4.8 stars and above with at least 10 reviews threshold for all of our vacation rentals. As we started as full time travelers, I let that scale slide back a bit in order to hit a budget for somewhere we really wanted to be (Mexico in the winter). And we paid for it! If you read multiple reviews that have the same complaint? Believe it. If you can read between the lines that things may not be all rosy? Believe it. As we start planing for next year I’m going back to my previous thresholds. If we can’t find something we like in our budget then that isn’t the location for us!
This was our 2nd Airbnb in Puerto Vallarta and we definitely disliked it! The kitchen was barely functional and was not well supplied. We went for low cost and paid the price of being uncomfortable!
Be prepared to buy what you need to be comfortable: This is probably specific to us as full time travelers, but for us we’ve learned that it isn’t worth a month of being frustrated by not having something we need. This includes items like plastic storage containers for leftovers, a rubber spatula for scrambled eggs, or even a skillet. It is pretty shocking how bad some of our pots and pans have been, particularly in Mexico. Skillets get warped to the point where there is hardly anything touching the burner! We are now comfortable knowing that occasionally, in order to cook our meals and not eat out all the time, we’ll need to invest in something to get us through the month and “pay it forward” so the next guests can benefit. In the grand scheme of things, it is worth that $3.00 spatula to have eggs turn out the way you want!
There will be new things to learn: In every Airbnb, we have something new to learn. That will be true if you are booking for a week or a month.
We’ve had lots of learning about coffee! Full drip coffee makers, 2 cup drip coffee makers, Delta Q machines, Nespresso Machines, and a Moka Pot! Each one comes with its own quirks…especially the Moka pot!
Learning to use a Moka Pot is like remembering all of your camping skills with a percolator! And deciphering the oven controls required a Google search!
In every stay we have had to learn how to work the washing machine, oven, induction cooktop, gas cooktop, microwave…when it is all in a different language or only has pictures! And in a few places, where we didn’t have a microwave, we’ve had to remember how to heat up leftovers! This is just part of the fun. Good thing we’re both life long learners!
Bidets are something most American’s aren’t all that used to, but they are very common here in Portugal!
What Makes a 5 Star Airbnb?
So what are those things that make an Airbnb one of our favorites or worthy of a 5 Star review?
Communication with the host is key. We’ve had issues in nearly all of our stays. From water heaters breaking, to power outages, to wifi outages, something always seems to come up. How quickly and professionally the host responds is really important! And of course how they can help remedy the issue i Those that have jumped in to help quickly always get a good review from me!
It is also the little things like being well stocked. Our Airbnb in Nazaré and this one in Olhão are so well stocked. Oils, salt, pepper, vinegar, spices go a long way to get us through the month. Extra toilet paper, paper towels, and napkins also stretch our supplies for the stay. Quality pots and pans and plastic storage containers make a huge difference if you cook dinner. And for us, extra sheets, towels and cleaning supplies make it so much simpler for a month stay.
But most importantly, it is the feeling like we are comfortable and at home at the end of the day. That we could imagine ourselves living there long term. And that we can’t wait to come back in the future!
Our favorite pastime! Playing Settlers of Catan!