Website, app makes lodging on a budget easier
One of the biggest hurdles a college student faces when traveling is hotel prices.
While you may find a great deal on a flight that you booked a year in advance, it is hard to find the same deal on big name hotels in that area.This dissuades a lot of people from seeing the world while they are young. This is made even more difficult if you plan to go to a big name city during a busy time time of the year. A company has made these monetary issues more manageable, though. Airbnb makes it more affordable for anyone to travel to any one of their two million plus listings worldwide.
Airbnb was founded in 2008 and is based in San Francisco, California. It has a unique way of bringing travel to their customers. Instead of renting a hotel at a Hilton or Marriott, you may rent house from a nurse named Hilary or a villa from a lawyer named Mary. People post their own houses, apartments, rooms, or even castles for you to pick from. Their website makes it easy to search in the city of your dreams for all the available options.
Former MNSU Art Education graduate Helen Peightal has used Airbnb twice. She traveled to Milwaukee and Chicago staying in Airbnb sites rather than hotels. Peightal said that the two sites she stayed at were more “homey” than hotels. The low end cost for a hotel in Chicago is right around $80. While a room in a house might be smaller than a hotel room, Airbnb rooms go for as low as $20 a night. The room that Peightal stayed in in Chicago was close to downtown and had “nice owners”. This is often the draw to these sites because they are unique to the owner.
Every one of the sights is new and exciting. The only negative she could find was that there was not much privacy because the owners lived in the same home as the residents.
Anybody can become an Airbnb host. By following a few easy steps your place can be up for rent too. The site asks for an address, a list of amenities, what kind of room it is, and what kind of property it is. After this, the owner can add pictures of the site to make it look better to the potential renter. Finally the owner sets the calendar and makes availability for the site. Owners account for their own busy weekends or vacations, based on the location there are obviously busier times than others. Airbnb is providing an alternative to the usual hotel chains and website a traveler can choose from. It is a new and exciting way to find great deals on dream destinations. Now students looking to go to Maui or Ireland can find a Airbnb to call home during their trip. No longer will high housing costs make the spring break trip unfeasable thanks to the innovation of Airbnb.