Why We Love AirBNB for Family Travel

So I'm not sure if staying at AirBNB's three times makes me an expert, but after three fabulous stays, it sure feels like it.  We admittedly had reservations about it initially as well, but if you're a frequent traveler, it's definitely a tool to have in your arsenal for cheap travel. (PS--check out the link at the bottom of this post to get $55 off your first AirBNB stay!)

Why Do We Love It?

1. It's Generally Cheaper than A Hotel
If you're only going somewhere for a night or two, maybe a hotel is fine.  But when we're traveling for more than 2-3 days, those day rates really add up.  And it just seems silly to spend a ton of money on a hotel room you're barely in!  You really just need a place to lay your head in the evenings. For most of our AirBNB stays, cost has been less than $100/day after taxes and fees. Having access to a kitchen also allows you to make some meals at "home", saving money on dining out (leaving more money for beer, for beer travelers like us, but also for things like museum admissions, tours, etc...aka FUN things!)

2. It's Also Quieter Than a Hotel
I once saw a shirt that said "Boys are Just Noise Covered in Dirt".  That is 100% true for our Lil' Man.  So we'd rather be somewhere that he's not going to be bothering folks. Likewise, hotels are often noisy places, close to the interstate with heavy traffic, other guests coming in late,  dinging elevators, slamming doors, stomping around on the floor above you... last week we stayed at a hotel where a swarm of middle schoolers kept running up and down the hallway at 10:30pm.  You wake up my kid once I finally have him down?  We're gonna have some WORDS.  Staying at an AirBNB eliminates some of those issues--though with small/rowdy kids, you may still have concerns about your kiddo bothering the Host, which is why it's nice if you can book a whole condo/apartment.

3. Space, Space, Space!!!
If you have kids, you know that sleeping in the same room as them can be pretty restless for everyone--I already sleep light in new places, so hearing our kiddo every time he turns over (and secretly wondering if he's going to fall out of bed)?  Bleh.  Plus our toddler is an early riser, which means a tot-size face at 5am asking if he can get into bed with you.  Not my fave.  So when we have the option, we really love to have a second room for him--we ALL seem to get better sleep that way. But a suite-type hotel room doesn't come cheap. Residence Inn Extended Stay hotels offer a 2 bedroom suite--generally at least $200/night or more, depending on the city.

But an AirBNB gives you all the flexibility you need to find a place that's perfect for your family.  Kids okay to bunk together, or do they fight constantly/wake each other up?  No worries--I've seen up to 6 bedrooms in a AirBNB.  Our kid goes to bed at 8pm, but we don't go to sleep until 10-11ish...so if we stay in a hotel, either we have to go to bed at the same time, or leave him alone in the room for an hour or so while we...what?  Go down to the lobby? Or sequester ourselves to a balcony (assuming our hotel room has one)?  With an AirBNB, we can put him to bed, then go in the living room and watch TV, play games, chat and have a drink, etc.  

(Having your own bedroom is also quite handy on vacay in the event that you and your spouse feel like being romantical...just saying.)

4. It just feels a bit more like home.
There's something about staying in a house rather than a hotel room that feels comfortable when traveling as a family.  It's still a new-to-you space, but being in a neighborhood rather than a commercial district feels like you're getting a little more authentic experience in the city you're visiting--you can sense the culture of a neighborhood, walk to a local park, and be away from the main drag or interstate.

Since we've stayed in a variety of types of AirBNB's, I decided to give a little more detail on each type below.

Whole Apartment AirBNB:
Our first AirBNB stay was an apartment above a business in Hermann, Missouri, for just The Hubs & I.  We wanted a romantic weekend getaway, but all the traditional bed & breakfasts and hotels in Hermann were on average about $200/night.  

Our three day stay ended up costing a little under $300 total (taxes and fees included). It was right downtown, within walking distance to everywhere we wanted to go (whereas a lot of the B&B's in Hermann are further away from the downtown area).  

We had the whole apartment to ourselves, and only interacted with the Host via the AirBNB Messaging Center.  Which honestly, for a couple introverts like us, was perfectly fine.  The stay came with free street parking, WiFi, and fresh pastries from a local bakery upon our arrival.

Whole House AirBNB:
We decided to use AirBNB again for a week-long family trip to New Orleans over Labor Day Week. We found a gorgeous condo (half of a double shotgun-style home) that had 2 bedrooms, full kitchen, all the fixins--for about $60/night.  

Our host lived in the other half of the house--we chatted with him a few times out on the porch.  Really great folks.  It came with off-street parking, WiFi, Netflix, Hulu, Prime...and several great nights' sleep.  

The Mid-City location was perfect for us since I'm pretty familiar with New Orleans and am comfortable driving around NOLA.

Private Suite in Host's Home:
For our most recent trip, we went to Chicago the week of Memorial Day.  Hotels were all $200-300, before taxes and parking. While looking for things to do in Chicago, we noticed that a lot of the breweries people were noting as "kid-friendly" were in the Logan Square neighborhood, so that's where we decided to look for lodging, so they'd be within walking distance.  

Definitely check out Hopewell Brewing if you decide to stay in Chicago.

We had trouble finding an AirBNB that would get us a whole apartment to ourselves, so we ended up going with a private suite inside someone's house.  

The space had a twin "trundle-style" bed, where the pull-out portion could pop up to the same level as the top bed, converting into a functional queen for my husband & I.  For our kiddo, we brought our inflatable toddler bed, which helps keep his tossing and turning confined.

It came with garaged off-street parking, was close to the "L" train and bus routes, and there was a great playground park across the street that our son wanted to play in every day.  

It was a beautiful historic old neighborhood with tall greystone and brownstone buildings, interspersed with newer construction.

Our Host travels a lot for work, so he ended up only being there one day while we were in town, and told us we had run of the house while he was gone, aside from the 2nd story (his bedroom/private quarters, which was locked).  

So while our suite was down in the basement, we were still able to use the kitchen, living area, back yard, and most importantly--the espresso machine. Mmmm...Going back to a Keurig will be tough.  

So ultimately, we paid about $100/night to have an entire house to ourselves.  You just can't beat that!

If you'd like to try out AirBNB, you can get $55 off your first stay by using this link!  I get a small credit toward future AirBNB travel as well, so it's a win-win!

Adventures in Parenting: Beach Vacationing with a Baby

In June, we took a trip to Destin in the panhandle of Florida.  This is about 12 hours (normally) by car from our home, and it's a trip we used to make every Memorial Weekend with a big group of friends.  We'd carpool down, stay 4-5 days, and split a condo or house.  The last year we did it we had 14 people, so it was super fun and super cheap.

...beach vacationing with a kid... is nothing like those days.  Aside from the location.

Let's break it down into 10 easy steps. (Also, anything we took with us that was really helpful for our trip, I'm including links to. I don't get anything for endorsing these*, they were just really awesome.)

1. Getting There.  I expected this to be horrible.  But it was actually not that bad.  (It's entirely possible that my gauge of "not that bad" has changed since being a mom, FYI. Remember that I have touched poop that didn't make.)  We loaded the car the day before, all except for our bathroom bags, ourselves, and the kid.  We then woke up before the sun, put the kid into the carseat while still sleeping, carefully loaded him into the car, and set off at 3am.  He then slept until about 7am--BAM, we're already a third of the way there!

Once he woke up, he played with his toys for about 45 minutes until he announced he was hungry. We stopped for gas, fed the kid, and then I took over driving for a while.   The kiddo happily played in his carseat for about an hour...

...until he started scream-crying. Totally upset, sudden onset, no obvious reason.  The Hubs climbed into the back seat to soothe him.  Since it was around his normal morning nap time we assumed he was just tired, and he did eventually fall asleep...for about 30 minutes, and then woke up just as upset as before.  We pulled off at a rest stop...where The Hubs discovered our poor kid had an eyelash in his eye.  

After some additional screaming at Dad for sticking his finger in his eye, the eyelash was retrieved and our kid was happy again.  We let him play for a bit, then put him back in the carseat and continued on down the road.  We stopped for lunch in Birmingham, and managed to get some additional food into the kid before he snuggled in for his afternoon nap, which lasted about 3 hours (cue the Hallelujah chorus).  Another bottle in his carseat when he woke, and then I just hung out in the back seat with him for the last couple hours of the drive to help keep him entertained.  We got to Destin around 5pm, relatively unscathed, just in time for dinner (which the baby slept through) and a sunset walk on the beach. Total travel time: 14 hours.

2.  Sleeping.  Our son does pretty well in a Pack 'n Play (PNP), thankfully.  But setting up the perfect sleep station takes a little work.  At home, he's got blackout curtains and is in his own room.  In Florida, he shared a room with us, and woke up at 6am the first morning because well, the sun was up!  So the following nights, we draped our beach towels over the windows to try to keep it a bit darker.  There was also an A/C vent that blew right into the area where we had the PNP set up, so we had to close that--which ended up making the room kind of hot, so we had to keep the ceiling fan on. We were right next to the beach, so the waves made for some really lovely white noise.

But still...he's sleeping in a strange place, with a new wonky schedule, and discovering all sorts of new things like sand and the pool and how to drink out of a straw.  So his sleep was far more erratic than at home.  One night, he woke at 11:30, 1 am, 3:30am, and then again at 5:30am, at which point we put him in his bouncer on the floor and I laid next to him, bouncing him until he fell asleep (This took a while. I actually dozed off a few times, and would then open my eyes to find him staring at me), and then by the grace of God he slept til 7am (at which point I heard my in-laws awake on the balcony so I went out, passed him off to them, and we went back to sleep for an hour).  We had to resort to this bouncer trick only one other time, thankfully (and Dad took that turn).

3. Bring Your Village.  My in-laws met us down there and we shared the condo, a lovely two-bedroom place in a 10 story complex right on the beach.  And I'm super grateful that they were there, because if it had only been The Hubs and I, this would not have qualified as a vacation.  "Relaxing" with a child is WORK.  First off, 90% of the stuff in our beach bag was for him:

Kid's Stuff	Our Stuff
Bottle/Food	Water
Hat/Sunglasses	Hat/Sunglasses
Baby Sunscreen	Adult Sunscreen
Toys	Towels
Beach Tent	Phone in Waterproof Case
Swim Diaper
Regular Diaper/Wipes
Pool Floatie
Pacifier
Spray Bottle Fan

So first, you get down to the beach.  My MIL had thankfully saved us chairs and an umbrella earlier that day, so at least that part was already taken care of.  But then someone has to hold the kid while you set up the beach tent for him (so he has a nice shaded, sand-free place to play).  

NOTE: If you're going to get a beach tent for your kiddo, I recommend an "instant" version, rather than what we have. Ours has poles...that are not the same length...and we ended up breaking one because of COURSE the first time we set it up EVER was there on the beach. But ours was free courtesy of Wednesday Night Trivia Winnings from our pre-baby days, so...eh.

Then there's the toys, and keeping him cool (thus the fan/spray bottle) and hydrated (I actually have a nipple that screws onto a water bottle and I totally left it at home, but he did okay drinking straight from the bottle...and if he didn't, who cares!  It's water, it spilled all over him and helped keep him cool.

And there's keeping him entertained, and let's not forget that he's still at an age where he can only go 2-3 hours awake without needing a nap, and we weren't quite at the "just let him nap on the beach" phase (though my in-laws, who are total beach bums and would stay out there 9am-6pm if they could, definitely petitioned for it).

But with 4 adults, this is much more manageable.  Grandpa takes the baby down to the surf while we set up the tent, then Grandma plays with him in the tent for a while while Mom & Dad go out into the water.  Then we tag out and one of us plays with him in the tent while the other relaxes.  And so it rotates for a couple hours until it's time to go in for lunch.  

Ceviche with Plaintain chips and a beachside view...perfect.

We also actually got to have a DATE NIGHT while we were there!  Grandma & Grandpa stayed in with the kiddo and we went out, had dinner, walked on the beach, tried some new brews, all sans kid.  It was LOVELY.  When we got home, he was PJ'd up and snoozing peacefully in his PNP.  Good job, grandparents.

Complete with dessert: vanilla bean creme brulee.  YUM.

4. Eating: We ate out quite a bit while we were in Destin/Fort Walton Beach. Our son thankfully does great at restaurants:  he either sleeps, or just hangs out, plays with his toys, makes sweet-eyes at the servers, and eats whatever you deem acceptable to give him: french fry guts, bites of hushpuppies, little chunks of fried fish, occasionally his own actual food.  He was a pretty happy camper. 

For eating at the condo, we brought his trusty travel high chair, snapped it onto one of the dining room chairs, and he was set.  In addition to his regular baby food, he got to try bits of watermelon, cantaloupe, egg, biscuit, and toast.  The only thing he didn't like was a piece of crab-boiled new potato--guess we're gonna have to build him up to spicy foods. :)

Eating from his bottle was a different story.  WAY too many distractions.  Plus he is ridiculously temperature sensitive.  He likes his bottles WARM.  Really warm.  We were fighting to get him to drink 10 ounces from a bottle a day (he usually eats 12-16 oz from bottles in addition to nursing at morning/bedtime) because he wouldn't sit still and we couldn't keep it at the right temp being on the beach much of the day.  We gave him lots of bottled water so I wasn't as worried that he would get dehydrated, but I still didn't want him being hungry.  Finally, I had an "aha" moment.  He's really into straws right now...so we pulled the straw out of a fountain drink we'd brought down to the beach and stuck it in his bottle.  Success!  He still didn't drink a LOT, but it was better than nothing.

5. Play time: As with most beach condos, the main rooms were tile floor--not great for an infant that still doesn't have the best grasp on gravity.  But we managed--we used blankets and spare cushions to build him a little play area.   The beach tent worked well for play time outside.  Though I'm not sure why we bother with toys--he'd rather chew on a plastic water bottle the entire time.

6. Stylin' Sun Wear:  I snagged up some baby swim trunks and rash guards at a consignment sale prior to our trip--he had three full beach sets and two hats which worked well for our one-week trip.  Only had to do laundry one time (small washer & dryer in our condo).

7. Pool time:  This was Baby J's first experience with the pool, so I was a little nervous, but he was totally chill about it.  It took him a little while to get used to his floatie, or just hanging out while we held him, but eventually he realized he could splash the water if he swung his arms around.  Also, Daddy is way more entertaining in the pool than Mama (as with all things. Le sigh.)  The sunshade and his hat kept him nice and cool and no baby sunburns!

I also got a partial pack of disposable swim diapers at a consignment sale before the trip (there were a LOT, which leads me to believe that no one ever goes through a full pack), and I found one cloth swim diaper at a baby thrift shop for about $3.  We used the latter more.  

NOTE: if you didn't already know, swim diapers serve exactly one purpose:  keep poo in.  Pee passes right through.  So you're supposed to change them into one right before you get in the water, then change them out of it once you get out.  Our last day at the beach, I put it on him when we got down to the water so Grandpa could take him out into the surf.  Then he came back and Grandma wanted to hold him.  I noted, "he's only wearing a swim diaper, so he may pee on you if we don't change it."  Five minutes later, Grandma shouts, "he peed on me!"  So there's that.  (Then again...you are at the beach.  There's a giant body of water out there filled with fish-pee...just go take a dip to rinse the human pee off.  File this under "things that are 'not that bad' now that you're a parent".)

Deciding whether to pee on Dad while wearing the swim diaper.

8. Naps:  Maybe you have an awesome napper.  Our son, while he has a pretty regular nap schedule [45 minutes around 9:30a, ~2 hours around 1pm], requires some coercion to actually drift off.  As such, we frequently resort to the bouncer (which he is rapidly outgrowing, so that trick is about to get chucked out the window).  But I mean, honestly, if you had a giant vibrating lounge chair and fuzzy blanket, you could probably take a nice long two hour nap, too.

9. Getting home.  This was pretty uneventful, thankfully.  We used the same strategy as Step 1 left around 4am, which got us about 3 hours down the road before he woke up.  He was a little more fussy on the way back, so we spent a little more time in the back seat keeping him entertained.  But ultimately it was really pretty bearable.  We stopped outside of Memphis on the way back and had lunch, and made it home around 6:30pm.  Travel Time = 14.5 hours

10. Getting Back Into A Routine:  Once you're home, of course there's the unpacking and the laundry and such, but just like you always take a while to get back into gear after a trip, so does the kid.  Our normally 'sleep through the night' baby was waking 2-3 times a night, and got some sinus issues from the change in climate/locale.  It also took him a while to go back to eating well from a bottle during the day.  All in all, I'd say it took a full week and a half before things were back to "normal" for him.

This gives me a lot of hope for future travels with our son. I know things will change--he'll nap less and need to be entertained more, but we DID it.  We survived a beach trip, travelling in a car, through 6 states, with an infant.  I'm thinking this may have to be an annual thing.

Edited 4/23/18 - * While I am now an Amazon Affiliate and do make a small advertising fee for linking to Amazon products, I 100% personally endorse each item linked in this article.