Airbnb: A better bet than hostel hopping?

Booking three weeks of European travel (on a budget) is a daunting task. One could spend an eternity burning the midnight oil on hostel aggregators, in a desperate search for half decent dorm bedrooms that (according to my recent searches) can run you 50-60 euro a night. 60 euro for a dorm bed? Not on this budget!

And then I found Airbnb, the short term accommodation rental site that matches renters and rentees, all independent from professional hoteliers. It’s based on house sharing, not hostel booking, and I just finished reserving private apartments for a 3 week brother/sister jaunt through Paris, Bruges and Amsterdam. The rentals cost around 20 Euros less than the hip hostels in town, and while we won’t be part of late night backpacker comeraderie, I’m more than happy to give this airbnb model a chance.  Coming home to a bohemian Parisian flat, a modern Dutch houseboat and a rustic Bruges farmhouse after long days of exploration will be welcome changes from dorm life. While some of my most treasured travel memories have been spent in hostels, I’m eager to discover whether Airbnb will make travel to expensive cities more affordable and, dare I say it, more enriching?

I did a bit more research about the house-sharing company and learn that Airbnb has over a million renters and hosts. We’re talking houses, apartments, villas, yachts, igloos, and even a treehouse or two. Headquartered in San Francisco, it was recently listed among the “next generation of multi billion dollar startups” by the New York Times.

The men behind the movement. Photo from Forbes

I’m thrilled to experience 3 weeks of apartment hopping, but not everyone is happy with the site’s incredible popularity. In 2011 they made $500 million, charging a 6-12% commission on each rental. People are asking: is it legal to rent out apartments for less than 30 days? Should airbnb start paying the same tourism taxes as big hotel chains? Is opening your home to strangers (and staying in the home of one) guaranteed to be safe?

The company is only a few years old, but founder Brian Chesky sees an enormous future ahead. He thinks of Airbnb as a “movement rather than a company.” The site “invites users to a time when hitchhiking wasn’t dangerous – when it was just fine to share anything with strangers because no one was all that strange.” I’ll be testing the waters in the next few weeks and let you know how it goes. When looking for accommodations, which sites do you use? Are you a hotel booker? A couch surfer? An Airbnber?