自我介绍

My story with Airbnb starts in 2012, when my partner and I travelled to Spain and met our first Airbnb host (hi Brad!) in Seville. We were so impressed by him, and his setup, that we thought maybe we could do the same. My partner had a house in Leeds, in the north of England, for which he had not been able to find suitable tenants, so we thought why not try to rent it out on Airbnb? Since then we estimate that we’ve hosted over 3000 guests, and it's been great! It's taught us a lot about humanity in the sense that most people have been awesome! Our ethos in hosting on Airbnb is to treat people like gold. We really value the people we work with, and of course our guests, working hard to make everyone’s stay a brilliant one. For me no other approach would make sense. Airbnb has given us a lot of freedom, and we have enjoyed staying with other Airbnb hosts around Europe. Since we started hosting on Airbnb, a few things have changed in my life. I'm no longer working as a publisher, but still writing - not as much as before, but I hope to return to that (and finish my novel!). I've had some struggles with my health, and this means that as a guest I'm looking for some very specific things when I search for places to stay. I suffer from rheumatoid arthritis so heating and accessibility are important, and unfortunately I've also started to experience electro-sensitivity (allergy to Wi-Fi and mobile phone signals) which is extremely debilitating. So I'm always searching for places off the beaten track - isolated spots where I won't meet people using mobile phones. The ideal situation is a place with a broadband router where it's possible to switch off the Wi-Fi, but still connect to the internet using an ethernet cable (which I carry with me) - remember how we used to connect to the Internet 10 or so years ago? ;) I can't use a mobile phone, so it can be a little difficult keeping in touch with hosts while I'm travelling. I have to be quite organised before I set off, and then ask my partner to send messages for me when we are en route. I have food sensitivities which means that I can't eat out, so I would always be self-catering when I travel. And finally I am sensitive to chemicals and fragrances; for this reason we always bring our own bedding so that we don't have to ask our hosts to make special arrangements to wash their bedding in products without fragrances. If as a host, however, you could avoid using perfumes such as air fresheners in the property before we arrive that would be great. Finally, sometimes we do travel with Mittens, our cat. I hasten to say that she is fully house trained! Since we started this journey the term digital nomad has come into use, as has the lesser known phrase electro refugee. I’m somewhere between the two at the moment! Thank you for reading! There’s a strange matter to address, and I hope it’s appropriate to do so here. I was left very strange review left for me (by Selda, October 2019). I didn’t write a review in return for this host as I felt to do so would affect their business very badly. (Several things promised to me before I made the reservation didn’t happen, we had a really bad time there, and then the host made up some strange stories and tried to extort a lot of money from me. Thankfully Airbnb didn’t support them in this, but they also said they wouldn’t remove the review, as it seems defamation is not an issue with Airbnb reviews). I was unable to respond to the review because I didn’t leave on myself, so all I can do is state here that not one phrase of it is true, and if you want to ask me anything about it please do just send me a message. And for the record, here’s my original profile! I am a writer and publisher, and recently I moved from the UK to the Iberian peninsula with my partner James, for the climate and wonderful culture. We've been pioneering "slow travel" - living and working in a place for a few months to really savour the experience, and then moving on. We've been working as Airbnb hosts while we do this, and our first Airbnb home in Seville was an incredible success. We chose somewhere beautiful and very close to the main cultural attractions,and our guests adored it as much as we did. We stayed in Seville for seven months - it was paradise! - then we went to Portugal and lived by the sea at Cascais, and now we are living in the mountains near Malaga. We also realised that we could offer James’ house in Leeds on Airbnb with the help of our neighbours and that's going very well indeed - people seem to appreciate a cosy home as an alternative to staying in a hotel. We also stay in other Airbnb homes a lot when we travel - I guess you could call us Airbnb addicts!