Seattle AirBNB 

Monday January 18th

AirBNB is to hotels what UBER is to taxi's. Private individuals rent their homes, private rooms or shared rooms to people. There is a pretty extensive procedure they have to go through to list  on AirBNB and they must VERY accurately describe in words and pictures what they will rent and provide and at what cost. Additionally they must list the rules they have for the rental so that there is no mis-communication based on the listing. They get rated by stars (1 start lowest to 5 stars highest) from the folks who have rented from them. 5 Stars means they've provided exactly what they said they would. So a place might have a 5 star rating and be a space for tent in the backyards with access to a toilet. My point is the stars don't indicate luxury but rather customer satisfaction. The folks who rent through AirBNB also have to jump through some hurdles and get rated with stars as to how well the folks liked them too! Trash a place or two and you'll likely never get anyone to rent to you again. The system seems to keep everyone on their best behavior. Dollar for dollar, AirBNB is a huge winner over hotels with regard to value and security.

Our first AirBNB was in Seattle. After 4 days and 3 nights on the Train we were definitely ready for a REAL shower/bath and to walk around for while to stretch our legs.  Caitlyn's AirBNB was our choice for Seattle and it turned out to be a great one. Our total cost was $54 including tax. We only planned to get there in time for a shower before bed and sleep on something other than a train seat for a change. The AirBNB description and pictures proved to be accurate and Caitlyn had everything orderly and easy to figure out.

Caitlyn met us when we got there after dinner and we chatted for a bit. Caitlyn was a free spirited purple-haired young professional working for Microsoft. She had spent a year teaching English in Europe and done some shoestring traveling abroad. Our train trip woes were lost on here cause she had traveled the Trans-Siberian/Mongolian railway just a few years ago and was obviously not going to be impressed by any hardships incurred on Amtrak. She said she kept the room rented pretty regularly and it provided nearly $1500 a month in additional income which was always helpful in Seattle where the average home sells for about 1/2 million dollars and the minimum wage is $15 an hour.

The bedroom had one of those Keurig single cup coffee machines in it so we had great coffee in the room. The house was a skinny story affair with a finished basement and attic.

The common areas were kinda small and cluttered for more than a couple people but we didn't use them anyway.

Caitlyn had done a wonderful job of creating a welcome basket with a hand-made instruction book that covered everything a guest would need. We could have worked out the bus schedule/route but after a couple beers we just called UBER and got there in about 5 minutes for $9.36. In the morning we showered and got our stuff together and called UBER again.