How to Use Airbnb Like A Pro

If you frequent this blog, you may know that I have a well-documented love for Airbnb. Through this wondrous network of home-away-from-homes, I've been able to snuggle up in cabins in upstate New York, attend Alt Summit without having to share a room with five other women, and even find affordable accommodations for my recent trip to Europe. I've also regularly used Airbnb for when I have visitors here in NYC because, for some reason, my parents don't want to sleep on my IKEA sectional couch (I mean, seriously, what's that about?).

If you ask me, Airbnb is the best way to go when it comes to finding the right place to stay. It's cheaper, it's homier, the hosts are wonderful, and it's just a convenient, solid system for making travel easier. I use it so regularly that I actually can't remember the last time I stayed in a hotel.

That being said, since I've been around the Airbnb block a few times, I thought I'd share with you today some of my tips and tricks for booking the best possible experience. Let's do this.

Know what you want

Do you want the whole place to yourself? Is it important for you to have a washer/dryer? Would you like to stay in a treehouse or a riverboat? If you have specific requests, Airbnb does a good job of helping you sort out the listings that just aren't going to work for you. After entering in your dates and location, you can always choose the More Filters option. From there, you can click through a series of checkboxes or even plug in a keyword (e.g. king size bed, beachfront, movie theater on site). Pro tip: If you are traveling somewhere woodsy, wifi is not a given, so filter your search to make sure that you don't end up in a cabin somewhere without any access to Orange Is The New Black.

Don't dismiss private rooms

In terms of room type, you probably know that you have three options to choose from: Entire Place (you get the whole kit-n-kaboodle to yourself), Private Room (you stay in a room where your host will be on site), and Shared Room (you share a room with another human being). As a certified introvert, I always swore that I would never choose any option besides Entire Place. I just didn't like the idea of someone else being around while I hung out in their digs. But while booking a trip to Salt Lake City, I noticed that there were a lot of private rooms available for crazy cheap (like $30 a night) that looked really great. I booked one, and man oh man, it was fabulous. My host was a dream. She didn't ask overly personal questions, walk in on me in the bathroom, or hover over my bed a la The Exorcist. She just chilled and answered my questions whenever I had them. I had a private entrance, so it was basically like staying in a hotel room, only super cheap and actually much nicer. All of that to say: even if you're a total loner, a private room might still be a good deal for you.

Read the fine print

Some hosts go to great lengths to describe their listing. Some don't. I often steer clear of the ones that don't because I like to be well-informed of what I'm getting into. But I also look for certain red flags, too. For instance, when a host says, "We LOVE making new friends and we hope you will take some time during your visit to sit down with us, have a scone, and tell us your story" -- that's a big ole NOPE for me. If you're into that sort of thing, go for it, but for me, that's just not my bag. Instead, I look for a host that says, "We enjoy hosting our guests, and while we are always available to answer questions, our aim is to respect your privacy." Sign me up for that. Also, be aware of their cancelation policy or if they have weird house rules (A curfew? Am I 17?).

If your dates are flexible, be flexible

Just like a hotel, Airbnb listings often have a high and a low season, so rates are subject to change depending on the month or even the day of the week. Take a look at the calendar on listings to see the availability and cost of each day. You know, be smart.

Read reviews

Reviews are at the heart of what makes Airbnb great. For one, they hold hosts and guests accountable. Knowing that you are subject to a review process makes you far more likely to be on your best behavior. But for another, they give great insight into what's really going on. A host description could be like, "I have the best house in the world. Two bedrooms. Two bathrooms. Close to shops. No ghosts or ghouls of any kind, I swear" but then you read the reviews and they are like, "The toilet was broken the entire time I was there, and dude, there were SO. MANY. GHOSTS. If that's an issue for you, don't stay here." (For the record, this is just an example, but man, I kind of wish it were real). Take interest in what a host says about their place, but put your trust in reviews.

Introduce yourself

When you've found a place you love, reach out to the host to say "hello" and make sure they have availability. Be nice, complementary, say what your travels plans are, use proper grammar -- just be a decent human being. Many hosts run their Airbnb listing as a business, but at the same time, they are also welcoming perfect strangers into their home which can be a vulnerable position to be in. Put their mind at ease by showing them you are a considerate person, and you will be far more likely to be approved.

Be a superstar guest

Hosts aren't the only ones who receive a review on Airbnb. Guests do too. Think about that before you clog someone's toilet or crank Metallica at 3 AM. In my most recent experience, my hosts only approved people with one or more reviews, and they said they were most impressed with the ones I had received. Not to brag, but I'm kind of the perfect guest. I tidy up, I say please and thank you, I don't scream in my sleep. I basically just act like a decent human being and all seems to go fairly well. Do the same thing and hosts will be far more likely to trust you to take care of their homes.

Now that you know how to be the best Airbnb user possible, it might be time to finally give it a try! Here's $20 from me to you to use on your first Airbnb adventure!

Have you used Airbnb? What are some of your tips for having the best possible experience?

How To Write Well And Write Often (Part 1)

Writing has always been my go-to activity. For instance, when my husband first laid eyes on me, I was sitting in a corner, feverishly scribbling notes into a journal. We were both fifteen-years-old, surrounded by socializing teenagers, and yet there I sat, writing like my life depended on it.

While this image slightly embarrasses me, for the record, not much has changed. I write every single day. I just do. It would feel weird not to. Also, it's my profession, so there's that.

And in writing as often as I do, I've discovered some techniques along the way that have really helped my process. These are ideas that I've either come across from other writers or just by pure accident in my own experimentation. Hopefully you will find value in them, and if you don't, uh, I guess just keep that noise to yourself.

Write morning pages.

This concept comes from The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, and it's been somewhat of a game changer for me this year. Morning pages are comprised of three HANDWRITTEN pages of stream-of-consciousness writing first thing in the morning. And by stream-of-consciousness, I mean that these pages should look like the ramblings of a crazy person. By spewing thoughts all over three pages, it's far simpler to battle those voices in your head that say, "Are you kidding me? Do you really think you're going to write something worthwhile today? Pssh." Writing my morning pages gets my juices flowing, and believe it or not, some of my favorite ideas have come from this process. Whatever comes to mind, write it down, and make a daily habit of it.

Recognize your creativity spikes.

If you put a pen in my hand and tell me to write something at six o'clock in the morning, I might be able to scrawl my own name, but that's about it. By 9 AM, I've got some proper nouns flowing, and by 3 PM, I've got some verbs, but my brain really kicks into gear between 4:30 PM and 1 AM. I'll be the first to admit that this isn't the most practical time to be creative, and believe me, I've tried to switch up my schedule, but it seems this is just how my brain works. Still, because I can recognize this daily spike in my creativity levels, I try to get as much out of this time as I can. I get tedious things like emails and phone calls out of the way in the morning so that come 4:30, I'm ready to bust it, writing style. Think about when you feel most inspired in your day (maybe you're one of those early morning freaks). Are you really using that time to your advantage?

Write shitty first drafts.

I've already written about this idea in a previous post, and I probably will do so about a hundred times after this because it's seriously that important. "Shitty first drafts" comes from the book Bird By Bird by Anne Lammott, which as far as I'm concerned is the best book on writing that exists. Basically, once you've written your morning pages and you've picked a stellar time in your day to work, Lammott argues that you should simply start your project and let it be awful. Use words that aren't glamorous, let your characters say stupid things, make a whole mess of everything. Then go back and pick out the one or two things that you actually like. I think bloggers especially have lost the art of drafting, and it's so very important. Write like crazy, then refine.

Write about your lunch.

Also from Bird By Bird. Folks, when you are struggling for material, write about lunch. Seriously. In particular, write about the lunch that was served in your school cafeteria as a kid. Trust me. Lunch is a goldmine for ideas, and it never gets old no matter how many times you write about it. Never.

Read your writing out loud.

Every post you've read on this blog, I've read out loud to myself. If that sounds excessive, I don't really care. Even if I'm sitting in a coffee shop writing, I'll quietly mutter my words under my breath like a madwoman because that's how important I think this practice is. Reading your writing aloud is the best way to make sure everything sounds like an actual human wrote it. It forces you to think about the way you would communicate your message to a friend, and I'm a firm believer in making friends of your readers. Rule of thumb: If you feel like a robot while reading your stuff out loud, it's time to add some of your own flavor.

Remember that humor is in the details.

Remember how me and Anne Lammott told you to write about lunch? Really think about your childhood cafeteria. Who served your food? What shape was your pizza? Where did you sit? Was there anything that made your lunchroom special? These details are everything. They take a sentence from, "I asked for some milk," to "I sheepishly asked Roberta, the head lunch lady and the star of all of my nightmares, for some milk." Details are glitter. They make your writing sparkle and create a more authentic picture for your readers.

(By the by, in my school cafeteria our milk came in bags. Plastic, beanbag shaped bags that we would have to spear with a pointed straw. They nearly always exploded, and thinking about them still fills me with an inexplicable rage.)

Write for yourself.

If you are a blogger, you probably spend a lot of time thinking about who your audience is and what they might like to read. That's fine, but it's also sort of limiting. My belief is this: if you build it, they will come. Your readers want you, the real you, not some reduced-fat version of you. It can be tempting while writing to think, "Oh GOD, what if my mom reads this?" or "Yikes, this is making me sound like a terrible person." If a thought like that creeps into your mind, shut it down. You can edit out all of your weirdness later, but while you're writing, write only what is true. 

Frickin' LIVE.

You can't write if you don't experience the world around you. Plain and simple. Go live, girl.

Frickin' READ.

You can't write if you don't read. Plain and simple. Go read, girl.


Lookout for the second part of this series next week, but in the meantime...

What is your best piece of writing advice?

How To Be a Better Blogger

Let's just get this truth out in the open: the idea of making money with a blog is very cool. I believe that every blogger is somewhere on a spectrum between "eh, I guess making money with my blog would be nice, but I'm good either way" and "my blog is my business/life/everything". I sit somewhere in the middle, but even from that vantage point, I sometimes have mini-meltdowns about just how much information exists out there on how to be a successful blogger.

I recently listened to this podcast episode from Joy the Baker which really digs into how the blogging industry (if we can even call it an industry) has changed over the last few years. I highly recommend giving it a listen. Apparently in the golden days of blogging, long before my time, bloggers were compensated in accordance with their Clicks Per Minute, or CPM. That means if you had a really viral post that catapulted you into success, or if you developed a devoted following over time, there was a chance that you could be making BANK (or at least some pretty decent money). In today's blogging universe, that is just not the case. CPM is still monitored, but it hardly accounts for anything, and the same is true for most click-based stats. If you have Google AdSense on your website, you know this to be largely the case.

True story on this: My blog first came to be known (by people other than my mom) because of this post I wrote about wedding do-overs. It was shared a lot on Pinterest because I guess people don't want to make mistakes at their weddings, who knows. Anyway, there was one day where my page views just SKYROCKETED. 17,000+ hits in a single day (what the helllll?!). I went to click the "Earnings" tab on my Blogger account, my hands rubbing together like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons, and do you know how much I made from Google that day?

$8.01

That's roughly $0.00047 per click. Definitely not mogul money, but make no mistake, I did buy myself a Big Gulp that evening.

I earned it.

The point is you can get thousands of views in a day, but if you're not leveraging some other side of your business (ad spots, sponsors, affiliate links, product reviews, merchandise), you're not going to make a lot of money. The good news is that there are people out there who are able to make an excellent living off of their blogging earnings. The bad news is that getting to that point can be a colossal pain in the ass.

As someone who has been taking this blogging game pretty seriously over the last year, I've developed a bit of insight (mostly by making mistakes) into what it takes to get readers, keep readers, and yeah, make a little money. No matter where you are in your blogging journey, whether you are Joanna Goddard-level famous or your only follower is your mom (hey, go say thanks to your mom), I believe there are a few key areas we should always be focusing on as people who make stuff for the internet. Some of these pieces of advice may help you grow your readership and some may just help you to see yourself as an artist. Take from it what you will.

Oh, and keep in mind that these are all things at which I've failed, and I probably will again.

#1. Just, like, stop trying so hard.

You know how they say a watched pot never boils? Well, we all know that is garbage. I watched a pot the other day while I was making ramen, and you know what? It boiled. But you know what else? I wasn't any better for having watched it.

That's kind of how blogging works, and probably life, I don't know. Much like the inevitability of water boiling when heated, your blog will grow if you keep at it. It simply will. Unless you don't touch it for months on end, it's likely going to get some traction at some point.

But it takes time, probably more time than you'd like

In the waiting stage, it's so tempting to make desperate moves to get more followers, more likes, more retweets. This is the time where you are most likely to look over into the yards of other, more successful bloggers to try to see what they are doing that you are not. You start making lists, adding more pictures, talking about coffee.

But here's the truth -- readers can smell desperation, and it makes them uneasy. I mean, you know this from personal experience. You've been to that blog before where every post is riddled with cliches and the "About Me" seems like it was written by an alien studying human expression. You didn't stick around long, did you?

Look, I agonized over who was following my blog and how to make it more shareable until one day, I wrote a post that I assumed only my friends would enjoy, and it took off. Things really do happen when you stop trying so hard. Stop obsessively checking your stats, stop using vocabulary you don't really understand, and start writing about the things that matter to you.

#2. Love on other bloggers.

Okay, you're seeing your page views go up, so obviously someone is reading your posts, but no one is leaving any comments. This can be super discouraging. I used to get frustrated when I would post my blog on Facebook, get tons of comments there but no comments on my actual blog. This taught me something, though: social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have an ingrained interactive (social) component. That's not necessarily the case for blogs. If you want people to interact with your content, you have to create a commenting culture. 

Here was my problem: I was sharing posts on Facebook with people who were, for the most part, non-bloggers. Non-bloggers usually won't want to leave comments on your blog because it's not a platform with which they are particularly comfortable. They'll read, and then they'll bounce off to something else. 

You know who will want to leave comments on your blog? BLOGGERS! 

But how do you get them to visit your blog? Easy. Leave comments on their blog! The very thing you want, do it for someone else. And do it genuinely. Find some blogs you're really into and leave relevant comments. I say relevant because "Hey cool post follow pls" probably won't cut it. It doesn't for me anyway.

Oh, also, link to these other blogs that you like. Tweet at them. Make them feel like a million bucks, and I promise you, at least a few of them will return the favor.

#3. Express yourself with your design.

A beautiful layout...ah, a blogger's white whale. Like the clothes we wear or the apartment we decorate with throw pillows from IKEA, a blog layout is the world's first impression of what you are all about. I feel like this is an area with which we can get a little too obsessed, but then again, I'm not a design-centric blogger. There are always things that can be improved upon, but as far as I'm concerned, here are the only criteria with which you should judge your blog layout:

Is it eye-catching? Is it acceptably clean? Can I find all the things? Does it reflect me?

If the answer to these questions is yes, then you are golden! Once again, it's about putting your stamp on things. I am positive that there are some people who come to my brightly-colored blog, thinking to themselves that it looks like a muppet just barfed all over their computer screen. But you know what? These clashing colors and giant glasses do a good job of expressing all of the whimsical nonsense I want to share with the world. 

#4. Make it sharable. 

This is a rule you can feel free to break if it doesn’t work with your style, but I believe that graphics are the single most important aspect to any blogging success I’ve had thus far. Back to my wedding do-overs post -- this was the first of my blog posts that I ever pinned. I took a picture from my wedding, slapped a title on it, shared it on Pinterest, and to this day, that post is still spreading like crazy

If I had not created a graphic, maybe someone would have pinned one of my pictures instead, but I genuinely believe that taking 5 minutes to make a title image in Pic Monkey made all of the difference for me. And when I say 5 minutes, it really is that easy, easier even. I just made this picture in exactly 2 minutes and 45 seconds.

Now, not every image you pin is going to go viral, but the point is that images are effective. Don’t assume, however, that graphics are a substitute for quality writing. They are not.

#5. Write what you want and wait for someone to like it.

I may have already said something similar to this (or exactly like this) before, but that’s because it really bears repeating. Writing is a practice that has the power to shape lives, most notably your own. If you are blogging what you love – at best, you will make a career out of it. At worst, you will have a collection of writing that you can be proud of. When you write what you love, you simply cannot lose.

Anyway, for preaching sharable content and graphics, this sure has been a wordy post with very few images. Still, I hope it's at least brought some clarity and hopefully some comfort as well. The main point of all of this, as cliche as it might sound, is to be yourself and allow wonderful things to happen naturally. There really is no good in waiting for that pot to boil. 

Bloggers, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. What are some of your tips?