Make Money While You Travel…BUT REALLY

Money, money, moneyyyyyy.

It’s got to be the #1 reason you don’t travel as much as you would like….are we right?! Because, as you know, adventuring is not cheap.

This has always been our biggest limitation in regards to vacationing as a family. Especially, as because the more our family grew, the more dollars we were cashing out for each trip.

This also was one of the biggest factors in why we were slow as mud to jump on traveling internationally with kids….”But it is SO much money, just to get over there!”…”Shouldn’t we wait and spend that money when we can *actually* enjoy it.”

LIES. ALL LIES.

Life is short friends, way too short to wait to go to Europe once the kids are out of the house.

The problem: travel is expensive.

The solution: Enter the literal most BRILLIANT idea we’ve ever had.

When planning our trip to Italy, we knew we needed to find some way to offset the costs of not only traveling overseas for a month, but also covering the expenses of our bills here (more on how we spent 1 month in Italy for $1k here).

Insert our means of making money while we travel HERE- Monetizing something that is ours, when we aren’t using it.

And so the idea of listing our own house on AirBnb whilst away on vacation came to life- and it was the most glorious, brilliant, divine, idea we’ve ever had.

Now, this isn’t for everyone. We’ve gotten the looks…..”You do what?!”….”So, you let people stay in YOUR house? Oh, I could never do that.”…”Isn’t that weird that strangers have been staying in your home?”

We totally get it. But for us, as long as they don’t sleep in our sheets and it allows us to more easily hit that book button on our next adventure…it’s an undeniable YES.

Below we are answering some FAQ’s/tips we typically get about renting our house out on AirBnb while we travel. Go ahead and get your own listing started HERE and earn $40 with your first booking (plus significantly reducing your travel expenses)-

• Don’t feel like your house has to be PERFECT to be able to do this! – We had sooo many projects still left on the list the first time we booked our house during a trip (including a arm length hole in our laundry room wall). The only non-negotiable? That it’s CLEAN. Perfectly styled and every single project completed is absolutely not necessary.
• Get professional photos taken– We reached out to our realtor and were able to get pictures taken of our house for $100! Worth every penny for how quickly those photos help our listing move. There has not been a single trip we haven’t had someone book our home since the inception of this idea in Spring of 2018!

• Allot your Cleaning Fee to cover a pre and post cleaning– When setting up your listing, you will have the option to input a cleaning fee for guests. Use this to your advantage! We have our fee cover a cleaning before we leave (we’ve done it the hard way and attempted to get out home spick and span ourselves pre-travel and it was just wayyyy too stressful). Now we just straighten up pre-departure and leave the heavy lifting to someone else! And one of the very, very best parts of all of this?? Drumroll please…..You come home after a trip to a SPARKLING CLEAN house. Friends, is there ANYTHING better?!

• What about your valuables? We are fairly minimalist (read our list of travel essentials for the less is more mama here), so we honestly do not have any “valuables” other than our laptop and a necklace or two. Options here are- lock your items in a safe, have a friend/family member hold onto them during your trip, or if the items are small enough, take them with you! You have the ability to approve or deny every single person that books your home…so check out their reviews, message them, get a feel for their character if you can. We have never once had an issue with this, or had a single item shown up missing/damaged, nor had anything but a pleasant experience with our travelers!
• What about damage to the home? Shout out to AirBnb, because for every single host (at absolutely no additional cost to you) they offer their “Host Guarantee.” This provides you “property damage protection of up to $1 million USD for every host and every listing.” So truly, you have nothing to lose. Thankfully, we have yet to experience any damage or loss, but feel super confident knowing this is here as a back-up protection if needed. Go on, start setting up your own listing here now!

• Second set of “AirBnb” guest towels and sheets– The one thing that weirded me out in thinking about other people staying in our home was them sleeping in our sheets (too weird right?!). That was my one non-negotiable with this whole idea. So we invested in a a very basic set of sheets and towels to pull out only when we have a booking. Once we get home our own sheets go back on and it’s like no one was ever there!

Use the link HERE to get your listing set up and earn $40 with your first booking (plus significantly reducing your travel expenses)! Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions. We would love to help you get out and adventure more in any way we can!