The holidays are prime time for traveling.. If you’re visiting family or going somewhere new it’s important to love the place you’re staying. Check out my tips for finding the best Airbnb listings and getting an awesome deal on some really cool locations.

I love traveling to new places and I feel like one of the best ways to immerse yourself in a new culture is by passing on the hotel and staying in someone’s home or condo. Airbnb has been a big part of my boyfriend and my travel plans and if you get an Airbnb that you love chances are you’re going to save a lot of money and get an awesome “local” experience.

That being said it’s also easy to get yourself stuck in a lame Airbnb situation, say with an awful host, confusing address or no parking.

Earlier this year when my boyfriend and I took a road trip through Spain, France and Italy we stayed at a handful of Airbnbs and had a great time. With a good host you can find out the best places to eat, the best sights to see and get an overall more homey experience. And with the wrong host you can get yelled at, lost, in a fender bender and much more. Below I have put together my guide for getting the perfect Airbnb for your next stay.

Keep reading for my tips to getting the best Airbnbs and what to look out for to avoid having a bad stay.

What to look for :

• • Booking a month or so in advance. A lot of times, the sooner you book the better a deal you can get on a spot. On the flip side is last minute bookings where people will lower the price to fill their unit but if you have the time to plan and book in advance you can get some great deals.

• • The whole apartment/home setting. Since most of the time the places are just over $100-150, it’s worth avoiding any weird house guests to just look for places that you’ll have the whole unit to yourself.

• • Private parking. Depending on if you are on a road trip or have a car with you, you want to make sure there is private parking. By this I mean a garage or a set spot, not a parking garage for rent down the road where you have to leave your keys, or a public parking lot that has tiny sports that are impossible to get into and you can’t even get your luggage out of. (More on this nightmare story later). You want to feel safe leaving your car and also know you have a place to park after a night out or driving all day.

• • In unit Wifi. This might seem like a no brainer that most places would have their own wifi, but you should check. We stayed somewhere that listed private wifi and when we got there it was the free city wifi that was so slow it didn’t work. Not great when you’re in a foreign country relying on wifi to communicate and trying not to use your roaming data.

• • A kitchen. Even if you’re only going to be there for a day or two and will be eating out, it is nice to have the option to heat something up or make a snack or coffee and tea. We usually like to eat out and cook a meal with the local produce to save some money. We made the best pasta sauce staying in our Airbnb in Paris with the fresh tomatoes and produce at the corner market.

• • Accurate photographs. If the unit is listed as a studio and you see a bedroom setup and also a living room or kitchen set up you might want to take a closer look. This has happened to me twice. Once in Paris where we stayed in an attic type room that you couldn’t stand up straight in and the bathroom was outside the unit, and once in San Francisco where the listing said it could accommodate 4-5 people. Both times, the room was set up as a bedroom and then the pull out couch or Murphy bed were put away and another room was set up to make it look larger than it is. Also check what views they are showing out the window or nearby by comparing the address on google maps. A lot of places in Hawaii or tropical destinations will show the beach or ocean view that aren’t theirs just to show what’s in the area. 

• Elevator/description of how many floors you are up. If you have a lot of bags and are up a ton of stairs. Two times we were in places that didn’t mention they were up over 7 flights of stairs and we had to carry huge bags. It is okay if you know in advance and can just bring the things you need for the night but if you can’t walk up that many steps easily or need help you should ask what they elevator situation is like. A lot of places are old buildings in different countries so that is understandable but the host should explain that there are a lot of stairs.

• A host with good ratings. This is a given but look for people who have a lot of ratings and mention communication. Nothing is worse than traveling all day and not being able to find the place or get ahold of your host to meet for keys or getting the wifi password and more.
• If you don’t like dealing with people or want a flexible schedule…look for a key box or unit with a code to get in. This way you don’t need to meet within an hour window and you can arrive at night and be able to gain access to a unit. This is also good for people with last minute plans because you can find spots that don’t require meeting the host and you can gain entry with a key box or code. You also don’t need to be approved to stay so you can book at any time. 

Most of my airbnb experiences have been great. Michael and I have stayed in some awesome places like a huge flat in Genoa that was owned by a big time photographer, an amazing building in Collioure with roof access and a spot in Florence with awesome underground parking and a full courtyard in the middle of the city. We’ve been able to book last minute trips when staying in Ireland to take the train to Galway and we’ve found awesome restaurants based on host recommendations.

BUT we’ve also had some super stressful experiences and one in particular that was so bad I just have to share the story.  We were driving to Nice, France from Nime where we had stayed in a hotel the night before. Our spot was booked weeks in advance right in the middle of town and it had private parking which was the main thing we were looking for driving cross country. The host said parking would be fine and there was wifi, and when to meet her and we thought the photos of the flat looked amazing. When we got to the little alley of our address we noticed the door and front of the building were not as pictured. It was raining. The roads were tiny and we had been calling our host for half an hour.

I got out of the car to try and walk around the building to see if I could find her. With no luck I return to where Michael is in the car to find some woman yelling at him, getting in the front seat and gesturing for me to follow them. Our bags were in the back seat so I couldn’t get in and had to follow them a few blocks over. When I caught up to them I was greeted by a woman yelling “Are you his woman?! He doesn’t know how to drive! He is a terrible driver!”  I was so shocked that someone would talk to me that way, much less someone in the hospitality business who was late to meet us and completely lied about having parking.

She pointed for Michael to get into a parallel parking spot the size for a golf cart. Both of us said we wouldn’t fit but she forced us in. Here’s where things got really fun…The car got stuck. I mean at an angle trying to pull in with no room to move forward, and traffic building up behind us. She was yelling that we didn’t know how to drive and were so rude for having a car in her small part of town even though SHE told us we would have parking and knew we were driving our whole trip.

Michael was stuck and completely frustrated. Cars couldn’t get past us and the lady ran off to find someone “who knows how to drive”. A man that didn’t speak any English reached for the keys and got  in the car. After realizing the car was automatic instead of manual, he started getting upset about that and couldn’t do it. He decided to keep trying even though we said he had less than an inch margin and he hit the wall in front of us, backe up into the car behind us all while the lady was still yelling at us.

While this was happening, a regular spot opened up. The traffic was able to move past and the man moved our car to a different spot. Front of the car scratched and dented, he backed into such a tight spot that we couldn’t open the door to get our luggage out of the back. The lady tells me and Michael to give the man the keys and go with her to the room. Um no thank you that’s all of our belongings, our rental car and a stranger so no. I went with her and Michael waited with the man. As we got to the building we started climbing stairs. 8 flights of winding uneven stairs later, I made it into the flat. The lady had laundry drying all over the room, didn’t apologize at all, gave us the wifi code to the city wifi that didn’t  work. Michael showed up, our bags were stuck but I figured if we can’t get them out that someone trying to break into the car wouldn’t be able to get them out either.

The host left, we wouldn’t get on wifi, the apartment was not in the location listed and there was only one restaurant nearby. We didn’t want to deal with the stairs again and getting lost so we just stayed in for the night drinking the wine we had brought and the top ramen noodles in my backpack that I could fit out of the car. We wanted to leave her an awful review, but as we still had several Airbnbs to stay in the rest of the trip, we didn’t want her leaving us a false review in return. Ugh such a mess.

And on top of that we didn’t have car insurance. Being under 25 meant paying a premium for insurance and since we were dropping to car off in Italy after getting it in Spain, they were charging us a ton. So it would have been about $2000 bucks with insurance for a car that they said was only worth $1800… We had made it the whole trip with no issues until the guy pulled into the wall and backed into a car. Nice was definitely not nice and we were so ready to leave the next morning and not look back as we headed to Genoa.

So, I definitely learned to be more mindful of photographs, and the features that a listing will put down and am sure to get the wifi info and parking squared away during the communications with the host before getting there. Enough of the bad stuff though… I’ve included pictures of my favorite Airbnb places and if any of you are interested in staying at one of them I’ll get the info from Michael and pass it along.

We’ve used Airbnb in San Francisco, Paris, Galway, Collioure, Aix en Provence, Nice, Genoa, Florence and a few others so if you have any travels taking you that way let me know and I can recommend the places we stayed!

Check out my whole review of Collioure here, I can’t wait to go back!