Slow travel during the pandemic: Our observations and tips

 

Sunset at Atlantic Beach, North Carolina

My wife and I sold our home during the pandemic (August 2020), and we needed a place to stay long term.  We chose to travel and spend time with our family instead of looking for a permanent place of our own.  We chose Airbnb sublet eventually, and it’s working out great for now. 

Here are our observations and our tips for traveling during the pandemic.  

Observations:

• Once we knew our home’s closing date, we needed to start looking for a place to stay.  We looked into various travel booking websites, including Expedia, Travelocity, Hotwire, Hotels.com, etc., but couldn’t find anything in our price range of around $800-$1000 per month.  What’s common with most travel websites is they almost always charge additional fees like taxes (state/county/municipality/hotel occupancy/travel surcharge, etc.), and resort fees.  Whereas a simple motel/hotel room may start at $30-$35 per night, with these fees tacked on, it may end up being close to $50+ per night.  This would bust our rental budget!

          We needed to look at other options.  We then started looking at vacation booking websites like Vrbo,       

          Airbnb, Homeaway, etc.  Because we have a furry companion (a Pomeranian dog), we needed

          to find websites that cater to pets.  We were comparing Airbnb and Vrbo exclusively as they had the 

          best rates on monthly stays.  Their filter option also works well when adding the ‘pets allowed’

          option.  

          ***We ended up using ‘Airbnb sublet’ specifically and not the regular Airbnb website or other 

          vacation sites, as Airbnb sublet ended up being the cheapest.  When searching for Airbnb sublet,

          be sure to do a search for ‘Airbnb sublet’ like below.

          TIP:  To filter by ‘pets allowed’, click the ‘filter’ icon next to the dates on top.  See below:

Tip: Above screenshot is from an iPhone.  On an iPad, you would select location, dates of travel and number of guests.  On the following page, click on number of guest again to select the option of ‘Pets:  Are you bringing a pet?’

• Our first Airbnb sublet was in Ocean City, Maryland.  It cost $865 for the entire month of October.  It was a small one bedroom condo, but the size was perfect for the three of us.  It had a full kitchen, a sofa bed in the living room, and a full bed in the bedroom.  It also had a balcony, which we used to our full advantage.  We would go out there for the sunrise, then go out there to wind down the day and see the day settle into night...

Pros of this rental unit: 

Location (only two blocks to the beach and the bayside, walked everywhere)

Size (perfect for 3 of us)

Amenities (full kitchen, balcony, WiFi, living room and a bedroom)

Places to eat (plenty of options on Boardwalk and nearby; drive to mainland for more choices)

Cons of this rental unit:

Smoke smell (there was a renter who was a heavy smoker nearby; had to open both front and balcony doors to ventilate at times)

Bathroom supplies (the listing did mention this, but it did not have any supplies like toilet paper, soap, shampoo)

We picked a good month to visit Ocean City.  Weather was awesome.  Typical day would be a high of 60-65 degrees during the day, and about 50 degrees during the evenings.  We would walk the beach and the Boardwalk area 3-5 times a week.  We rented bikes on the Boardwalk several times as well.

There were two festivals we saw during that month:  Sunfest Kite Festival and Cruisin’ Ocean City.

We explored OC mostly by foot.  We only needed to drive our car to go food shopping.  We would certainly go back there...

Ocean City Boardwalk 

• Our second Airbnb sublet place was in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina.  This one cost $1000 per month.  This was a larger one bedroom motel converted into a condo.  It had a larger living area, a larger bedroom, and a full kitchen.  During the month of December, we felt like we were the only ones staying there for the most part!  It was very quiet which we liked.  This unit’s bigger size made our stay much more enjoyable.

Pros of this rental unit:

Location (two blocks to the beach, Fort Macon State Park is one mile away)

Size (much bigger space than Ocean City!)

Amenities (full kitchen, WiFi, living room and bedroom, bathroom supplies and cleaning supplies)

Netflix (we really appreciated this one)

Cons of this rental unit:

Places to eat/shop (nothing close enough to walk to, but it didn’t bother us too much as we would do food shopping and take out on the same trip)

Atlantic Beach was great in a different way.  It was much more secluded compared to OC.  Vehicle traffic was non-existent.  We rarely had neighbors.  This made for a very quiet surroundings.  We can hear the waves pounding the beach at night.  We heard natural sounds like birds chirping or wind blowing, instead of car / truck noise more often than not.  

Because we didn’t have many neighbors, there were times we would try to guess how long someone would stay.  This became a fun game of guessing who’s right!

Atlantic Beach’s greatest thing besides the ocean has got to be Fort Macon State Park.  We spent plenty of time there enjoying the park.  There are nature trails, beautiful restored fort, ocean views, and multiple observation decks to ponder about life...

Weather was awesome.  We consistently had above 50 degree weather throughout the month!  It was perfect for walking the beach, the many trails, and watching both sunrises and sunsets.

We would love to go back there as well.

Oceanana Pier, Atlantic Beach 

Tips for using Airbnb sublet

• Check to make sure you understand what’s provided and what’s not provided.   If the listing does not mention bathroom supplies like towels, bathroom tissue, etc., it probably doesn’t.  Be sure to contact the host BEFORE booking the listing to confirm.  We usually ask the host to confirm our dog is allowed so there are no surprises, for example.  You can ask anything that’s pertinent to you.

Bring things with you if rental does NOT have them.  We brought bathroom supplies, towels, linens, pillow cases, soap, shampoo, for example.

• Take a quick video of the place once you check in to make sure there are no surprises after you check out.  Document any damages you see, or things that are missing that were thought to be provided.  You should also do this at check out as well.
• If booking for multiple months, Airbnb will take out first month’s rental when you initially book.  They will then charge you again towards the end of the first month of your stay for the NEXT MONTH.  For example, if I had booked both October and November, my first month payment would’ve been in August (day I booked).  Then around end of October, November payment would be taken out of my credit card on file.
• Before arriving there, be sure to take screenshots (or printed sheets) of rental address / check in instructions / parking instructions.  It’ll be hectic that day especially if you’re staying a month.  You don’t want to search for these that day...We had over 10 things to carry with us (our bags, dog stuff, my wife’s painting supplies, food for the first day or so, etc.)!  
• Plan for things like where to shop for groceries, for take out food, etc., before arriving there.  Did I mention you’ll be crazy busy that first day and tired???  We had driven 5 hours to get to Ocean City and 10 hours to get to Atlantic Beach from NYC, where we were staying at the time.  
• Once you check in, DO clean with your own cleaning supplies any common contact surfaces like door knobs, kitchen faucets, sitting areas, or anywhere else you think should be cleaned.  This was a good advice before the pandemic, but it’s now more important during the pandemic.

For those of you wondering where we were in September and November, we stayed with our family.  One of our goals we set out to achieve was to spend more time with our family.  We took shorter trips with our family to two different casinos (our parents really enjoy them), Mountain Creek (Vernon, NJ), and to Bushkill, Pennsylvania.  We certainly succeeded in that goal...

In each rental/hotel, we made sure we wiped down commonly touched surfaces as soon as we checked in.  These would include things like remote control, table/chairs, kitchen faucet, door knobs, refrigerator door handle, etc...A simple baby wipe or paper towel/Windex combo worked for us.

We hope our story helps anyone out there who might be thinking of booking a long term rental through Airbnb sublet.  Airbnb sublet worked for us, but please do your own shopping to see what’s out there.  If you don’t have pets, your rental options will be bigger and better.

We thank you for reading!

Jake

Wandering Money Pig

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Please click here for Atlantic Beach sunrise video.

Please click here for Fort Macon State Park, Atlantic Beach 

Please click here for Elliot Coues nature trail, Atlantic Beach.

Please click here for Oceanana Pier, Atlantic Beach.

Please click here for Ocean City video.

Please check out our YouTube channel ‘Wandering Money Pig’ showcasing our travels and our Pomeranian dog! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3kl9f4W9sfNG5h1l-x6nHw