AirBnB is such a unique way to travel, and our guests have really appreciated us opening up our home!

I first became intrigued about the idea of earning a side income by hosting with AirBnB last winter, after reading a great article from the perspective of a family from California (which naturally I can’t locate now…). I had just left my stable City income, and the idea of earning cash while on vacation certainly appealed to me.

A month later, I was interviewing Ms. Kathy about the prospect of enrolling Mama Bliss Coaching School and trying to figure out how I was going to afford tuition (which isn’t that much if I hadn’t already paid for the Simplicity Parenting training). She kept gushing about how much she loves Portland, and visits often, so on a whim I threw out the idea of doing a trade for staying at our place during the month of August, when we were already planning to be gone on vacation. It turned out that they were planning a big move, so it wouldn’t work. But the suggestion did get me thinking…“Well, what if I could earn that money from someone else staying at our place?”

We were already planning a big spring break trip back East, so initially I thought it would be great to get our place listed and hope that some family wanted to come to Portland for spring break. I did some more research about hosting, and decided to set up a profile. The only thing that was missing was photos.

But even as a Mama who strives to live a decluttered life, the place was never quite clean enough to be able to take photos for the world to see. So, I decided to clean and take pics the day before we were heading out of town. I was shocked to get two requests/reservations within the first 24 hours! 

Our first reservation was for ten days when we were already planning to take our annual anniversary/family trip. We’re packing up for our trip to B.C. (Mayne Island/Vancouver Island and Van), and we’ll be making nearly $2k while we’re on vacation. A couple from Connecticut will be staying with their two grown daughters while they visit family in Portland. The woman even sounds excited about watering my garden!

Flash back to spring break, and ended up getting three reservations with guests staying at our place for nine of the ten nights we were gone on vacation. It brought in nearly $2k…nearly our monthly mortgage!

We’ve been out of town a fair amount this summer, and by Labor Day we will have grossed nearly $8k in our first six months of AirBnB rentals! 

Even if you haven’t considered hosting until now, the potential for extra income may have you curious too… There’s a lot more to it than just posting a listing, so I’ll be sharing more of our AirBnB story…while we’re away on our road trip. 🙂

Let me know if you have any questions or if you have your own experiences to share!

Happy hosting,
Darcy