A Long-Term Airbnb Traveler Shares Her Top Tips for Nomadic Living

  • Airbnb is seeing users e-book more time stays, with 20{e9f0aada585b9d73d0d08d3c277fd760092386ec23cac37d50f4b8cd792b062a} of evenings booked for a thirty day period or far more.
  • 1 extended-time period traveller advised Insider she has been dwelling on Airbnb for the past six months.
  • Despite the fact that she’s funding the excursion with an inheritance, her regular expenditures are similar to her previous lease.

The final decision arrived — as daily life-modifying ones are inclined to do — in the center of the evening.

It was January of past yr and Denise Netzley reported she had been imagining for many weeks about going out of her condominium in Los Angeles and residing for the foreseeable long term on Airbnb.

“I woke up,” she explained to Insider, “and I was just like, ‘Yeah, I’m doing this, 100{e9f0aada585b9d73d0d08d3c277fd760092386ec23cac37d50f4b8cd792b062a} I’m carrying out this.'”

The following early morning she started receiving rid of what belongings she could, moved the relaxation into storage, and produced reservations on Airbnb.

At 59 years old, Netzley had some price savings from a occupation creating adverts for Hollywood movies, adopted by a private assistant organization that was winding down. She also received an inheritance pursuing the demise of her father three years ago, which she said manufactured the complete system achievable.

Denise Netzley

Denise Netzley

Denise Netzley


In starting to be a entire-time Airbnb visitor, Netzley was joining a increasing established of power customers who are scheduling more time and longer reservations on the system.

Corporation facts show that around a fifth of nights booked ended up for stays lengthier than a thirty day period, CEO Brian Chesky claimed in a new Twitter thread in which he announced that he too is now “living on Airbnb.”

The initially reservation Netzley created was the 1 where she’s at the moment dwelling — in her father’s birthplace of Kansas Town, Missouri. From there she worked backwards, filling in the months with stays in Mexico and South Africa.

In earning the reservations, Netzley identified by accident that some hosts provide bargains ranging from 15{e9f0aada585b9d73d0d08d3c277fd760092386ec23cac37d50f4b8cd792b062a} to 50{e9f0aada585b9d73d0d08d3c277fd760092386ec23cac37d50f4b8cd792b062a} when a reservation passes a specified length.

In Could of very last yr, Netzley handed in excess of the keys to her LA condominium and departed for a 6-7 days remain in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico.

“The 1st few days there I was fully confused, a fish out of h2o,” she explained. “But following the initially 7 days I acquired the lay of the land and I obtained relaxed adequate to hire a automobile and start off using these day journeys to different spots, like Tulum.”

Denise Netzley in South Africa.

Denise Netzley in South Africa.

Denise Netzley


Netzley’s information to equally out-of-h2o fish is easy: “Sit at the bar in any restaurant when you go, folks are likely to be extra inclined to be conversational. The bartender is likely to assistance make connections. I just always sit at the bar almost any place I go.”

She put in August in a Kansas City community that she was thinking of to stay write-up-journey right before jetting off to Cape City where a condo in a ten-unit constructing turned her two-thirty day period base-camp for shorter jaunts all around Africa.

“I uncovered that I like having a home base,” she said. “I just adore the notion that I failed to have to schlep every little thing. I could just choose a modest bag and go away my stuff.”

Netzley additional that she was in a position to get by with bringing about 50 {e9f0aada585b9d73d0d08d3c277fd760092386ec23cac37d50f4b8cd792b062a} the total of things to Africa that she experienced introduced with her to Mexico.

And whilst she wasn’t holding a near eye on her price range, the obtaining electrical power of the US greenback abroad meant that she was efficiently dwelling at a comparable or decrease regular monthly cost to what she would have compensated in rent and bills experienced she basically stayed in LA.

On her way back to the US in December, she handed by Uganda and went on a gorilla trek that she mentioned was the “complete pinnacle” of the 6-month journey.

Now back in Kansas City at the exact Airbnb host she stayed with in August, Netzley claims she’s “at a crossroads” striving to establish how she can go on to aid her upcoming travels, such as launching a new enterprise concept.

Right before she had set out in the initial put, she experienced determined not to turn out to be connected to the inheritance dollars from her father, and now she’s established not to enable this new enterprise just take above far too significantly of her everyday living.

“I’ve discovered in this travel — and in this 12 months — that you can find so a great deal pleasure out there,” Netzley said.” I would in no way give up that for income, at any time.”