On our trip we stayed only in Airbnbs so far – tomorrow will be our first night in a hotel, so I would like to tell you about our experiences of 3 weeks in 13 different airbnbs. 13 different homes – 13 different hosts. We’ve stayed in a chick apartment in Hollywood, LA; in a garden hut in San Francisco, a Pool house in Sonoma Valley, a true bed&breakfast in Walla Walla, in a basement in Portland and tonight we stay in a unique wooden home we have all for ourselves near Yellowstone park. All pictures you’ll see in this post, will be from our stay in this place – but it stands for the uniqueness of all the homes we’ve been to so far.
When I travel I like to not only see places but also to get to know the people. I love to eat local food and see how the people are, so staying at locals all along our trip was a great way to connect to the “Americans”.
Most places we stayed at, we loved. In Florence we had a great little cabin that smelled after lavender and was lovely decorated with artwork from the owner’s husband, in the evening we had a long chat with them about Austria, the US, school systems and much more. In Portland we had hour long discussions over breakfast with our host about politics, urban planning and health. Our room was in the basement and a bit smelly and the breakfast consisted out of: lentils (sunday), rice with beans (monday) and tacos with cabbage and hot tomato soup (Wednesday), but the stay was still very nice, because we got to meet such awesome people. In Walla Walla we stayed at a true bed&breakfast that was owned by a couple that retired from their (boring) state work and opened the most perfect b&b in a beautiful little town that is surrounded by wineries and onion farms. They also shared a bottle of wine with us and talked about jobs, politics and the traffic (the US vs Europe). In Missoula, Montana our host took us to the best ice cream place in town (voted to be one of the 5 best in the US) and we sat outside eating our ice cream at 9pm in the rain, when it had 12°c outside and talked about our future and travelling and ice cream.
In San Francisco we stayed in a tiny garden hut that barely held us two + 3 suitcases, but it was cozy therefore… and cheap. Airbnb is a great way to travel when on a small budget. We’d often have breakfast included and stayed in the middle of the city in a room that was cute and usually with a private bathroom for half the prize of a shabby motel right next to the highway. However there are also some things that come with staying at other peoples homes, that you hav eto accept and embrace in order to make that stay worthwile. First of all it is their home, so you of course have to be respectful and considerate of others. Sometimes you are not the only guest or you have to share the bathroom with the hosts. You can’t leave your things outside your room and you can’t come and go whenever it suits you. You always have to arrange an arrival time which is not always easy when you are on the road all day and just don’t know when you will be at their home. Nevertheless this has always worked quite well and we have just been constantly amazed by the friendliness of our hosts. Wherever we go, we always find helpful, lovely people who make our journey a little bit easier…
The second challenge that we came across is their four-legged friends. It seems like an American home is not complete without a pet. I don’t think that we have stayed in a single home where there were no animals. Most homes have cats, which I find adorable and love to pet, but unfortunately for us, lots of Americans love to have a dog. We are not the biggest dog friends – we are actually quite afraid of them and we had already several places where the hosts were not at home when we arrived but expected us to walk into their house where a dog was barking like mad and “make ourselves at home”. Which is not how I imagined that I would be greeted upon arriving at a strangers place. Being with a dog in the same room where the owner is present is one thing – I mean I still don’t like it if they jump up at me or smell me or sit on my feet or whatever but at least the owners can call back their dogs when they see my not very amused face. When no one is at home and the dog is guarding the home I really don’t want to enter. Although I have to say that the dogs in the US are way better behaved than in Austria. None even looks or barks at you when their are being dog walked on the street and in the home, when the owner says “stop” they go in their corner and are tame like a lamb. Austrian dog owners could definitely learn a thing or two here… Still coping with all the dogs was definitely the biggest challenge for me to overcome on this journey so far…
Steffis wanderlust 
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