DI: In 2022, how will your travel plans change?

[Cole Simpson]

Daily Inquirer!

Today's question is both entertaining and beneficial to both short and intermediate-term investors. Many people are considering travel again now that travel restrictions are being eased and regulations are changing. Has any of this influenced your vacation plans or destinations? While many families have chosen to stay closer to home rather than fly, inflation and rising gas prices are hurting many families' trip plans.

Let us know about your amazing travel plans! When it comes to picking an STR, what features are most important to you? For you, what constitutes a good host and stay experience?

Leave a comment!

[Carolyn Fuller]

We would have normally gone to Europe for 4 weeks in April or May for our big vacation but we weren't ready to do that this year. So we did 6 weeks to the US Southwest & California instead. Otherwise, our smaller vacation plans are unchanged. They are all pretty close to home in New England and are recurring annual vacations to the same exact spots, including the same Airbnb that a friend owns and gives us once a year for bargain rates.

For our 6 week cross-country trip, we stayed in many Airbnbs. 5 star ones were hosted by people with a passion. They were passionate about their location, hosting strangers, and their units. Some of the units were singularly unique (e.g., structures in the middle of a Navajo sheep farm, a Female Hogan in the middle of nowhere on the Colorado River - so remote that I truly wish we had been driving an off-road vehicle to get there, a home on a Big Sur hillside with a private hot tub & lusciously soft white robes AND with hawks nesting nearby). Some were mundane but hosted by people who totally got what visitors to their location would want and need (e.g., locations in areas that backpacking hikers frequent had fabulously comfortable beds, exclusive use of washing machines & dryers, fabulously decked out, tiled showers). 

I actually came back home and tried to figure out how my tiny, mundane urban unit could begin to achieve 5 stars.

I decided to stop providing fresh flowers and chocolates to our guests because it took me 48 hours before I even noticed that one of our California hosts had a drop dead gorgeous fresh flower arrangement in the living room of our unit. Clearly fresh flowers don't make a difference, at least to me!

I started looking for things that were unique to my Airbnb's location. I am now supplying guests with croissant freshly baked 390 ft from the apartment and locally roasted coffee beans from a local coffee shop half a mile from the apartment. I interchange the croissant with hand crafted ice cream from a world renown and award winning ice cream shop that is 443 ft from the apartment. I also have 2 ceramic coffee mugs from this local coffee shop displayed on the table.

It seems to be working. I've gotten 5 star reviews from every single guest since we have returned from our vacation. And one of the guests mentioned the coffee beans in her review.