People Are Using Airbnb to Book Pandemic Vacations They May Never Take
‘It’s a way to keep momentum going forward for me, to imagine a time past the virus’
Katka Lapelosová has a new pandemic-era hobby: booking vacations that she doesn’t know when she’ll be able to take.
“I’m moving to Belgrade, Serbia, in a few weeks, and I keep planning trips based on proximity to Europe, Asia, and Africa, even though no one is allowed to go to any of those places, really,” she says. “Most hotels also don’t require payment upfront — you can pay when you arrive — so it has been fun to shop around and book places ‘just in case’ and get good deals.” Hotels also have better cancellation policies than Airbnb, she says, and airlines are increasingly offering free changes or airline credits that they were less likely to offer pre-pandemic, so it feels less risky to book and then cancel vacations than in the past.
Though I haven’t gone as far as to actually book any upcoming vacations, I’ve spent many an evening Googling “best hotels in Lisbon” and “Lisbon hotels with pools.” I’ve been dreaming about swimming at beautiful, warm, sunny locales. I was never much of a travel person, being incredibly anxious about money and truly hating airports. But after being forced to cancel a rare trip with a friend back in…
