My First Airbnb Experience

This is a sponsored post! Meaning the cool people at Airbnb — the title sponsor for the Brooklyn Half — reached out to me before the Brooklyn Half Marathon and asked if I’d be interested in staying in one of their Brooklyn rentals the night before the race (they gave me a credit to use toward the rental) so I didn’t have to schlep from the Upper East Side to Prospect Park at like 2 AM the morning of the race. You bet I did. So while I don’t typically do sponsored posts, this was something I actually thought was cool and wanted to do and want to tell you about today. Into it? Great.

I am happy to report that my Airbnb experience was easy and awesome, and I will 100% use Airbnb again. Honestly. If it weren’t awesome or if I weren’t planning to use it again, I would tell you. Lying is too hard because then you have to remember all your lies and keep the cycle going. Exhausting.

So like I said, I was offered a credit to use toward an Airbnb stay the night before the Brooklyn Half. I rang up [GChatted] my best tiger girl Lucy, who was running this as her first race, and was like, “Hey, remember when you used to live in Brooklyn but now you’re a west coaster and you’re running this race and you need a place to stay and my apartment is far as F from the race start?” She was like, “Yeah.” Then I said, “Want to have a sleepover with me in Brooklyn?!” She said, “Let me see if I have any better options, but if not, then sure.”

Here’s how it works:

• You create an account on the website. It’s very easy.
• You do a search based on where you want to travel/stay.
• The results pop up.
• You look at all the pictures and read the reviews.
• You pick the most outrageous, fanciest, swankiest apartment you can find. YOLO!

The whole booking process was easy, just like booking any hotel or restaurant reservation online. Nothing fancy to report here.

Lucy and I chose to stay at this place in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, about 1.4 miles from the race start. The apartment listing name? “The Notorious B.N.B. {Biggie}.”

Sold!

Lucy and I left the Upper East Side Friday morning with all our crap (i.e. the requisite 19 outfit options) to head to the expo, and then we Uber-ed our way to our home for the weekend.

And…holy shit.

This place was bonkers crazy. It was a four-story brownstone that stretched an entire block. We stood outside looking up at it like the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

(Check-in time was in the afternoon, but the owners live there and said we could drop our bags off anytime. We communicated a few times via email and our host, Jessica, was super responsive and nice.)

We dropped our stuff, gawked at the first floor, and then set off to see Pitch Perfect 2.

About the movie: I laughed the whole time, but I was a littttttle disappointed with the final performance. I wanted something more explosive and less about a battery powered light device. But I downloaded the soundtrack immediately and have been sending Lucy Dubsmashes every night since. (LMK if you want me to send you one of my Dubsmashes. I’m obsessed, addicted, and terrible at them because I always start laughing.) So…clearly didn’t hate it.

After the movie, we went back to the apartment and moved up to the fourth floor. I’ve never been in an apartment in New York City or anywhere that has a fourth freaking floor. It was a walk-up, and we got to the top with Host Doug, and he goes, “Wow, you guys are really out of breath.” And I was like, “YEAH, DOUG, WE ARE TAPERING.”

There were three bedrooms just on our floor, and I got the big one and we called it “The Parlour” all weekend. Or at least I did.

There were also two doggies there, and even though they weren’t allowed on our floor, we still went downstairs to play with them a lot.

I had always been a little weirded out by staying at a bed and breakfast, but this wasn’t at all weird. We had our own keys to the apartment, just like we would at a hotel, and it was really kind of special getting to stay somewhere super local and in a nice, quiet neighborhood instead of in a standard Hilton.

While the rest of our November Project teammates were stressing over which subway to take from the UES to get to the start on time, we snoozed in a little later and even had time to swing by Duane Reade for some last-minute Imodium on the way to the start (that damn stomach bug had me all nervous and I wanted to take all the proper precautions).

Jessica and Doug, the hosts, apparently make a kickass all-organic breakfast every morning at 8 AM, but we were already at mile 7 by that point, so we didn’t get to eat it. Sad.

It was also amazing getting to go back to the apartment after the race to shower and change instead of making that endless trip back home directly from Coney Island. We had a super fun little staycation, and I apologize to the people on the third floor if we were singing “When I’m gone…when I’m goooooooone…you’re gonna miss me when I’m gone” too loudly the whole time. We were just really excited.

Finally, and this one is a no brainer, when you’re staying at someone’s house, it’s a home. There are amenities, and most importantly for race travel, there’s a kitchen. You can cook your pre-race dinner and toast your pre-race bagel! Hotels in NYC are expensive as hell (trust me, I just looked up the price of every single one doing wedding host hotel research), and the Airbnb options are way cheaper. If you’re running the New York City Marathon, I seriously recommend seeing what’s available on Airbnb near the start or finish. (Let’s not talk about how much I had already spent on this race just to get to run it…)

The only sad part about the experience was when it was over. Aw. And also when we got back from the race and were heading to brunch and our Host Doug so kindly asked how the race went. Not important, Doug. Look away!

If you haven’t tried Airbnb, here’s a link to get $25 off your first rental. You’re welcome. I love you.