The trip? Well, firstly, it was dirty when we got there. I was amazed how much cleaning I had to do on my very first day of vacation! On top of that it was more crowded than we were expecting.
Pardon? No, it wasn’t a private vessel. We did a shared one. It’s cheaper, you know, and you meet the most interesting souls that way!
So, yes, anyway, we arrive only to find the place is filthy from top to bottom! Can you IMAGINE? Normally when you rent a space they leave notes on how things work, but nope, nothing. Luckily, because it was shared, there were plenty of others around to show us around, although we also had to share control and general operations. (We would have been able to go wherever we liked if we had been on our own, of course.) There was a lovely couple from Spain who left shortly after we arrived, and we were able to get a bit more say in activities after that. Felt a bit roomier, too.
We rent out little spaces like this often, so we were quite used to the little bumps that come with the amateur hospitality industry! Last year we got an authentic little place in a rural area of Mexico. This spring we were in Hawaii, not far from Honolulu. It’s not always easy finding places as a couple, but of course, George and I traveled so much together when we were still corporeal, we couldn’t imagine spending our time any other way. I highly recommend it.
You’re more likely to find people willing to rent out space if you go off the beaten path, of course. Some of the less-traveled regions are likely to have a lot of people who need money enough they’ll share their space with anyone, even last minute! Of course, you have to check your rental details carefully, both at booking and before checking in. You wouldn’t want to fall in with some junkies or anything.
But anyway I digress. Your question was did we enjoy our holiday. Aside from having to clean the young man we were staying in to bring him up to our standards, we had a delightful mountaineering trip. He really seemed to know what he was doing, and we never would have been able to scale the Alps in our corporeal lifetimes. It was quite a treat!
There was a touch of tragedy though, as one of the other AirBe&Be hosts was not as skilled as ours. On our third day climbing, he fell to his death. Quite sad for his family, I’m sure.
Hmmmm? Luckily, it was slow enough his tenants were able to transfer to other nearby accommodations. Sometimes they go quite quickly, and take their tenants with them, or you wind up downloaded to the cloud and stuck in limbo until a suitable host can be found. It’s really quite inconvenient, you know, but with enough preparation the risks of using a vacation rental body are really quite low. It is so much less expensive and more like “roughing it” than staying in more traditional accommodations, you know!