AirBnB – Have you tried this?

So last year, Gene and I decided to try out the AirBnB gig in our house.  We’d been having the discussion about down sizing or not and then we looked around at all the stuff. It’s sort of exhausting.  The garage alone will take weeks to clean out, then the basement – well you get it.

Then we’d heard about AirBnB and decided to give it a try.  I didn’t say much about it in the beginning, mostly because we wanted to see how it went and if it was something we wanted to continue.  Now a year has gone by and we’ve just started our second AirBnB.  Go us!

Some takeaways:

We’ve met some amazing people.  We’ve had families stay with us to single guys.  We’ve had a plethora of different reasons why people are visiting the Green Bay area from high school sports to concerts to work and everything in between.  We had a gentleman stay with us who was running the Cellcom Marathon and he brought his family.  He is originally from Slovakia and had a cool story about how he met his wife.

We had a couple from Canada, our first guests actually, who came to see their very first Green Bay Packer’s game.  Luckily we won that game and despite the cold, they had a good time.  If you’ve never been, there is nothing like Green Bay during a Packer season and the day of the game, well, it’s like no other.  The tailgating is over the top, the clothing ensembles people put together are outrageous and the food and drink – OMG you’ll never see anything like it.  Add in that the more than 85,000 people who come to tailgate, sell their wares, party and generally have a good time are all in a good mood, well now you have the makings of a giant party.

We hosted three college kids from China. They literally got off the plane in Chicago, jumped on a bus and were at our home just a few hours later.  Super nice kids coming to America.  Then I found out they hadn’t even told their parents they were leaving the country and besides telling them their parents would kick their butts, I wished them a fantastic visit to America.  I think of them often and hope they had a wonderful time visiting here.

We’ve had some not so great moments too.  We had two small families with one child each stay with us for two nights. They totally abused our home, our time, our kitchen, you name it. From using a plethora of dishes and cooking utensils and not cleaning up after themselves, to ripping the curtain rods out of the walls upstairs, spilling drinks on the carpets and disrupting our sleeping schedules, we had just about had it after they left.  Then we had a group of five guys stay with us for nine days and they couldn’t have been nicer. So, it took away the sting.

Finally, in August we had the opportunity to stay in an AirBnB as guests to see what its like. We were in Valley Forge PA and stayed with Keith.  He was very nice, super calm and easy going and accommodated our early arrival.  It was fun to stay as a guest and we’ll definitely travel that way again.

So, if you’re coming to Green Bay, check out our two AirBnB’s and stay with us.