I’ve stayed in airbnbs in the US about 10 times and all but 1 were fine but that one time was so horrible (serious safety issues, no host response for 3 days despite being a superhost, support kept giving the host more time to respond and then tried to get us to the nearest available house more than an hour away, ended up having to get a hotel) I’ve been really soured on the experience. My takeaway is basically that most of the time it’s totally fine! But when there IS problem I can’t rely on the host or Airbnb to address it in a timely manner. Also this happened in a rural area of a Midwest US state for context.

Our family of 6 (4 adults 2 kids) is traveling to Italy next summer, we’ll be visiting a few different cities and in some places it would be more comfortable /more convenient /cheaper (in some cases all 3) to have a house vs a traditional hotel. If we don’t have any serious problems, which I concede is statistically likely, it could make for a better trip overall. However I’m very reluctant to even consider Airbnb because of my bad experience but my husband (who was there for the last one and pissed too!) is pushing for it. My argument is if it’s bad it’s going to be WORSE in a foreign country where there is likely to be a language barrier. His argument is we’re mostly going to be in major cities so if we had to get a last minute hotel we could. To that I say a last minute hotel would be expensive and defeat one of the main the points of getting a house in the first place. And so we go round.

I need an outside opinion. Please tell me your stories good and bad about air B&Bs in Italy or other comparable country if you think it’s relevant, the more recent the better. Thanks!