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Comment by selfmodruntime | Hacker News Reader

Where I live, AirBnB is routinely 2x as expensive as chain hotels. I'm not sure who's using it anymore, but I'm surely not.

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For me it’s absolutely horrible staying in a hotel with kids. You either all stay in one room (so no fun once they’ve gone to bed and we sit in the dark) or you buy two rooms (normally really expensive) and then either try and find the normally-unavailable option on hotel websites to buy interconnecting rooms or sleep one adult and one child in twin beds in each room. It’s rubbish. There’s nowhere for them to really play either. AirBnB fixes all of this.

Nailed it. Everyone saying hotels are a better option are one or more of:

a. Childless

b. Vacationing in a popular/populous area where there is hotel choice

c. Not in the USA (I've gleaned from these threads that hotels with spacious suites are more common in Europe)

As an American with four little kids, I agree that this is the most compelling reason to choose Airbnb over hotels at this point, but we've still fallen back on hotels in the last few years. Places like Embassy Suites or Residence Inn with two-room and sometimes three-room suites have proven to be competitive for us in terms of price vs. space, especially when adjusted for risk after a string of bad Airbnb experiences. You can see my earlier comment on the thread. I do agree that there are some remote places where there's maybe an Airbnb and little else. Sometimes we've found cabin rentals in state parks to be hidden gems.

Yep, Airbnb more often than not is the only option for families, especially those with young children.

I recently ended up booking a 2 bed apartment for essentially the same price as a nearby hotel. I don’t like the overall Airbnb experience, but I also don’t want to pay ~2x for an additional hotel room.

Also, hotels don’t have a kitchen. Eating out for every meal isn’t something I’m going to do for any stay longer than a few days.

>Also, hotels don’t have a kitchen.

Not necessarily true. The suite/long-stay brands like Residence Inn usually have kitchenettes. (Not that I usually use them other than the refrigerator.)

Homewood Suites have full refrigerators and two burner stoves. There are plenty of hotel brands that cater to extended stays that have kitchens.

Aparthotels are pretty common.

Sadly that's not my experience for us. We need 2 rooms which usually means 2 hotel rooms vs 1 airbnb.

Just curious, why would you use an AirBnB near where you live?

Some people will rent a house to throw a party. Maybe their place is small or they just don't want 50 people in their house or maybe they want a swimming pool for their kid's birthday party.

I stayed at AirBnbs near where I live at least twice a month during the pandemic. There are all kinds of reasons. Mine were complicated and NSFW.

I looked into temporarily renting an AirBnB oder Hotel when I moved here, because finding an apartment in Munich is a nightmare.

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