How to Book Airbnbs as a Digital Nomad

Hello again! I previously talked about how we filtered and found Airbnbs as full-time digital nomads, but what about when you’re ready to make a move?

First things first — you need to have your Airbnb profile set up. Not just set up, either. Take some time to complete it. The more information you can add about who you are, what you do, and why you do it the better. After all, Airbnb hosts need to trust that you are a decent human who will take care of their home.

This means adding all of the required information from Airbnb, plus some. Make sure you have a picture that’s easy to see and write up a short bio. Don’t worry too much if you’ve never used Airbnb before, we never had a problem booking a place when we had little or no reviews on our account.

When it comes to booking travel I tend to feel most comfortable with the mindset “the earlier, the better.” However, last-minute Airbnb bookings are usually possible.

In general, we aimed to book an Airbnb in advance the same length of time we would be staying. For example, we stayed in Denver for a month. Therefore, we would want to find and book a place a month in advance. On the other hand, we stayed in Texarkana, Texas for a single night so it wasn’t an issue waiting until the day or two before to book.

There are a few reasons for booking this way:

Airbnb gives suggestions about what you should say in your initial message to hosts. Essentially you want to give some background into who you are and what you’ll be doing in the host’s town. We also used the initial message to a host to clarify any pet policies, let them know our cats were well traveled and behaved, and to clear up any questions we had on amenities.

Here’s the template we used for our initial message:

Hi (Host)!

We’re excited to visit (Place)! It will be our first time there.

We’re currently on a road trip across the country. We had been living in Nashville, TN but are currently in (Place). We’ve both got online businesses we’re running while on the road, so we’re half traveling half working as we go.

We’re also traveling with our two cats, Bitsy Jane, and Astro Dave. They’re both been traveling their entire lives and are great house guests. People always get a kick when they see them walking on a leash :)

We’re excited to stay and we’re happy to answer any questions!

Thanks,

(Names)

Each listing and host will be a little bit different, but there are a few things you want to do every time you’re booking:

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