Favorite Airbnbs (so far…)

While we did take a couple of small side trips to Sevilla Spain and Tavira at Christmastime and in interior Portugal and the Algarve in October and January, we’ve mostly been homebodies since returning from the UK in October. So, what does a travel blogger blog about when they haven’t been traveling? Hmmm. Well, not much, but maybe past travel?

So, here it is, a list of our top 5 (to keep it tight and restrictive and harder to choose) Airbnbs we’ve stayed in, so far. We stay in a lot of Airbnbs. They enable us to cook in, experience life as a quasi-resident at least for a short time and experience the neighborhoods. Also, for extended stays of four or more days, it can be more economical (though taxes and cleaning fees, etc. can add up and be tricky to discern on the Airbnb site).

These are not in any particular order. For ease of booking yourself and since the host’s pictures of the inside, are usually better than ones I take just as we are checking out, there are links to each posting on Airbnb in the list below.

1. Grant’s House in Carbost on the Isle of Skye. We mentioned in our post about Skye, that we’d had our eye on this particular Airbnb for close to a decade. All those weekend afternoons of planning our travels and pushing pins into maps in our old home in Denver always included time here. So, when we decided to go to the UK, we booked this one near first and built the trip around it, both before and after. This was a lovely little house with two bedrooms upstairs, a beautiful little living room and a spacious kitchen. The internet and satellite TV was a little touch and go at times, particularly if there was a guest online in the neighboring Airbnb which shared the same internet service (per Grant’s lengthy house guide), but we worked around that and mostly enjoyed feeling like we lived on Skye for two whole weeks.

2. San Clemente, California. This was really the first Airbnb we ever stayed in, and we got lucky (we actually stayed in the one next door first and caught a peek of this one when it was being cleaned). We’ve stayed here many times while visiting San Clemente for extended periods both before and during COVID. It was here where we celebrated the long life of Melissa’s dad as the career Navy man left port for the last time under a glorious sunset. And it was here where we stayed and worked while we visited him for extended periods in his final years. Despite the somewhat sad circumstances with which we found this one, it has a special place in our hearts and is a go-to when we return to San Clemente for long periods of time.

3. The Red House in Rico, Colorado. Also during COVID, we wanted a break from routine and met family in southwest Colorado for several days and stayed in this lovely home right on the Dolores River in the heart of Colorado’s San Juan Mountains. It was September and the valleys and hillsides were aflame with yellow and orange leaves, and we got downright gorgeous weather. It’s a spacious house with a lovely living area, a large kitchen and several bedrooms and is a good, remote, spot from which you can enjoy Telluride, though access to the ski area could be impacted by big storms in the wintertime.

4. Houseboat in Galway, Ireland. Rustic and charming, this houseboat and former clipper ship which was used during the evacuation of Dunkirk was something special. The kitchen was fairly rustic and bottled water was required but if you’re looking for a really unique stay a short walk from all the action in Galway, this is a great option.

5. Modern Venetian Apartment with a Terrace. To close out our 2022 Italian tour, we returned to Venice. We stayed out of the hustle and bustle in the Santa Croce neighborhood with a terrace looking over a quiet little canal down which gondolas silently paddled at all times of day. Venice was just heating up, both touristically and temperature-wise, in mid-May when we visited. This beautifully decorated, light and bright, and well-equipped apartment tucked out-of-the-way was conveniently located if you didn’t want mobs of tourists around you at every moment and if you wanted to experience Venice like a local, or at least some semblance of what it might be like. It (like all the others above) is a place we’d return again and again.

OK, I lied… one more as an encore…

6. Hancock, Maine. This lovely cottage on the banks of Tidal Falls near Bar Harbor was an absolutely fantastic place to spend a few days. It is a convenient place from which to visit Acadia National Park and the area while getting all the comforts of home. While the weather was a bit cool to enjoy the firepit, we added it back into a future itinerary to stay again and enjoy more time in this lovely, quiet home which lets you feel like a true Mainer Down East.