We Just Booked our First Monthly Rental!

So, we just reserved (and paid for) our first month-long Airbnb rental! Woohoo! It’s located in Asheville, NC, our first stop on our Moon River journey. We did a lot of browsing, praying, comparing, and considering before selecting this home in this town. Here are some things I discovered.

Airbnb monthly stays are cheaper than VRBO.

Airbnb is cheaper by far than VRBO when you are staying in one location for a month. If you rent a home for more than 29 days on Airbnb you get a substantial discount. VRBO does not appear to give you any discounts, but they do provide a link to “finance” the stay so you can make monthly payments.

However, VRBO has a much better cancellation policy. You get a 100% refund if you cancel two months prior to check-in. Airbnb you have 48 hours after making the booking to get your money back, after that you lose everything but the cleaning fee. So, after much consideration, we concluded the risk is worth saving $3,000.

Certain amenities are non-negotiable.

Dale and I made a short list of must haves for our monthly stays. It goes without saying that the home should be clean, fresh and comfortable. But as far as features, the home must:

• Be its own, self-contained unit. We don’t want to share a space with strangers.
• Have great wireless internet for Dale to work.
• Have a comfortable work area for Dale.
• Have a kitchen so we can prepare our own meals.
• Have some sort of outside seating area, preferably with nature views.
• Be near a town so we can get what we need easily and enjoy the local culture.
• Lastly, we strongly prefer to have a washer and dryer.

How are we choosing our locations?

Our tentative itinerary has us staying in areas where there are many opportunities to see and do things that we enjoy. We’d like a good variety of outdoor, historical and cultural destinations and activities.

• Historical sights such as Civil War sights, old neighborhoods, old churches and other buildings.
• Outdoor destinations like national, state or local parks, trails, rivers, disc golf courses.
• Friendly and clean towns with charming areas, coffee shops, restaurants and churches.
• Within three hours of weekend destinations that we want to see and explore.

Our accommodations in Asheville tick all the boxes. Unfortunately we are paying more than we wanted, but I’d rather start the trip off with a bang rather than a dud!