Wednesday, August 20, 2014

AirBnB

Here I'll post some notes about my experience with Airbnb. My first foray into the "share" economy. Not sure about that really, as ebay, Craigslist and a number of other well established sites are all about putting individuals in touch with each other to do commerce. But there's a new round of discussion about these sites, thanks to the rise of Uber, Sidecar, Freelancer, and so on. Given that we've now used the Airbnb service in 4 locations, I'm getting a feel for it.
 
First off, let me dispel the notion that Airbnb is an inexpensive way to go. Not in my travels. These are apartments that have been purchased (or moved out of) for the exact purpose of hiring out as many nights as possible. Sure, it may have started as a way to make a dollar off that extra room in somebody's apartment, but that isn't what it's becoming. It's a business, and not one you have to become a hotelier to enter.
 
As in everything, you get what you pay for. I need to sleep 4. A kitchen. A decent standard of cleanliness - though not perfect, more on this below. And the better the location, the higher the price tag. People aren't giving away their apartments for you to sleep in, and the owner knows well what that apartment is worth. Probably better than you do, if you're a traveler in an unfamiliar city.
 
That said I like what you get by staying in a private apartment. A kitchen, first of all, so you can avoid the crappy breakfast buffets that have become the bane of American hotel existence. Kids may like the idea of pouring their own waffles, eating them on a Styrofoam plate with goopy syrup squeezed out of a packet, but not me.
 
 

 
Other amenities such as TV, wifi, cable - you can pick out all that from the listing - and I have experienced good wifi and bad, just like at the hotels I've stayed in. Local knowledge is a plus, and I found if I had specific questions - best public transportation to take from the airport, for example - I could get informed, accurate help via email or a phone call in advance of arrival. Sometimes when you call a hotel, you wind up at a call center in Omaha and the person wouldn't know Bart transit from Bart Simpson.
 

How do you get in? Does the "host" wait for your arrival on the doorstep? Not hardly. Almost exclusively we found the properties made use of a lockbox to which you receive the code some time in advance of your stay.  
 
Upon a gate, under a stair, in a fork of wrought iron, beside a potted tulip, you will find something like this. Which works great, except when you're about to arrive, and you still haven't gotten the code.




This occasioned one urgent email saying "Call me! Won't be on the internet again before arrival." Really, people can take the whole smartphone, always on, instant communication thing a little too far. So we got the call shortly thereafter and it all worked out.
 
 
What's all that stuff in the fridge?
 
That's right, some owners tend to clean out between guests, and some don't. I personally am not looking for a perfectly spotless fridge or pantry when I arrive. I think it's great not to have to buy everything new for only a few days stay. Will I use somebody else's catsup? You bet. Or there Sri Racha sauce? Even better.
Especially welcome is coffee in the cupboard, spices, sugar, all those sorts of things. I guess I draw the line at half a deli container of potato salad. That probably oughta go in the trash. But to each his own. If you want to buy it all new, you can.
 
Along those lines a further comment about cleanliness. All the places we stayed were to a clean enough standard for this traveler. Airbnb includes a cleaning fee on each rental, and I'm sure many of the places had a service come in like clockwork on the day of departure. OTOH reading the reviews of places we stayed there were clearly dissenters, people who were disappointed, dismayed, ranting and raving and proving yet again that you can't please all the people all the time. Did they not know that San Francisco is an _old_ city? That those same endearing bay windows may not open? Or may not have double glazing, and on and on.
 
If you want to sleep like this:
 
 
 
you're probably better off in a hotel. Yeah, there may be a brand new or completely redone apartment on Airbnb, but I'd say be prepared for a little funky and you'll be a lot more satisfied.
 
And those four bottles of local craft beer in the fridge? I left 'em for ya.
 

 
 

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Travels in the USA

What a country of great extremes, from the politics - Tea Partiers to liberal Democrats to the locales and people you meet along the way. The US has such opulence. Still. But there is also a decay around the edges that is unmistakable. Maybe it hits me in the face a bit more having been away. A lot of it is the kind of gradual thing that occurs over time - the weeds creep upward, the trash collects under the freeway overpass, the concrete crumbles.

The two gateway points to the Pacific are Los Angeles and San Francisco. I spent some time walking, and driving, around these two cities, on my last two visits. Instead of giving you a pic of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Transamerica building, let's talk about what it really looks like. We flew into Oakland and caught transport to SF. The view out from the freeway, pretty much all the way to the bay bridge, was an eye-popping display of urban blight. The odd burned out building looms beside the freeway, windows are barred, fences high and barb wired.


I can't speak for the full extent of it, but this part of California is no yellow brick road through a field of daisies. To someone coming from a smaller, greener world, it's an assault upon the senses. One wonders if the locals notice it, see that nature, though not an attractive version of it, is taking the city back. In San Fran, I stayed mostly around Golden Gate Park, in the Richmond and Sunset districts. It's hard to believe that some of these shabby dwellings, without a patch of grass and in semi-disrepair, command prices in the neighborhood of $1.5M. Now that's real estate gone mad.

I picked that photo to make a point, but now I'll go for a random drop down into Google maps




This one pretty much sums up the balance. Nice pine trees. Interspersed with ever present tagging, chain fencing and a mix of scrub weed and brown, dying fauna. I know, it's a drought. Just walk through SF to Japantown. You'll know when you get there because suddenly the public spaces are well tended, even if it's zeroscape and rock garden.

And this mix of beauty and the beast pretty much follows on our drive up the coast. The fabulous redwood forests, so grand and ancient, give way to a small town where we spend the night, Garberville, CA. The local paper describes the current happening: citizens are gathering for a town meeting to discuss no access to law enforcement, and deteriorating sense of public safety. Folks don't feel secure, and they want the sheriff! One imagines reading similar headlines a hundred or more years ago. I believe this link is discussing the matter: Garberville petition

At dusk I walk to the local grocery to pick up dinner, glad that I've come alone. Clusters of people along the way, hanging out on the sidewalk or park areas. I am mostly not threatened by this scene, but I'm a 200 lb guy, and I can see where a person might be.  One has the sense that a giant sequoia, a thousand years old already, has been around long before the area's current travails, and it may well be around long after. I promise in my next post to give a more upbeat account, as there was much to like on the trip, as well as to discuss AirBnB which we used to handle lodging during some of this trip.


Mariposa Grove, Yosemite