Hi, I’m Renée.
For the past seven years, an Airbnb has been my home. Not occasionally. Not as an experiment. Permanently.
My partner and I have been living almost entirely in Airbnbs since 2019. Moving from place to place, country to country, unpacking our bags into whatever space we’ve booked for the next few months, and figuring out, usually within the first hour, whether it’s somewhere we can actually live in or just somewhere we can stay.
We’ve had both. We’ve walked into apartments that felt like home before we’d even put the kettle on. Warm, well thought out, prepared by a host who’d clearly imagined what it would feel like to arrive tired after a long journey. And we’ve walked into places that bore almost no resemblance to their photos, where the “dedicated workspace” was a wobbly chair at a kitchen counter, and the “quiet neighbourhood” was directly under an airport flight path with single-glazed windows.
Seven years of that teaches you things.
What I’ve Learned
You start to notice patterns. The small things that consistently make a stay feel right, and the small things that, one by one, quietly make it feel wrong. You learn to read between the lines of a review. You learn what a host’s response to a problem tells you about who they are. You learn that the difference between a good stay and a genuinely great one is rarely about price or location. It’s about whether someone thought carefully about what a guest actually needs.
You also learn, sometimes the hard way, what to do when things go badly. We’ve had a host in Taiwan who refused to act on a roof leaking through electrical wiring, and an apartment we arrived to find in a state that no reasonable person would call clean. We’ve dealt with neighbour disputes that escalated over weeks, hosts who went defensive at the first polite concern, and a ten-month booking (never again) that taught us more about lease flexibility than any advice article ever could.
We’ve also had the opposite: hosts who responded to a concern with immediate kindness, spaces that turned a difficult travel period into something genuinely comfortable, and moments in temporary apartments that felt more like home than places we’d lived in for years.
All of it ended up here.
Why I Created Homirenn
Most Airbnb advice online is written from the outside. General tips assembled from other general tips, without the grounding of having actually lived this way for years.
Homirenn is different. Not because I’m exceptional, but because the experience is real. Every guide, every recommendation, every piece of advice on this site comes from something we’ve actually encountered: a stay that taught us something, a mistake we made and corrected, a pattern we noticed across dozens of different homes, hosts, and countries.
The name Homirenn is a combination of home and my name, because that’s what this is really about. Not Airbnbs as a travel product, but Airbnbs as places where people actually live. And the gap between a space that functions as accommodation and one that genuinely feels like home is what I’ve spent seven years thinking about.
What You’ll Find Here
For guests. How to book with more confidence, read reviews properly, handle problems without stress, and make any space feel comfortable. Including the things most guest guides never cover: long-term stays, remote work setups, what to document on arrival, and why it matters.
For hosts. What guests actually notice in the first ten minutes, which details consistently make or break a review, and how to create a space that earns genuine 5-star feedback rather than politely generous 4-star write-ups.
Free tools. Practical checklists, templates, and planners you can use immediately. A turnover cleaning checklist that covers what most hosts miss. A welcome template that reduces guest questions before they’re asked. A meal planner and recipe cards for the long-stay guests who are actually cooking in your kitchen.
Remote work guides. For the growing number of people who work from Airbnbs full-time. Wi-Fi solutions that actually work. Video call setups for shared spaces. The gear we’ve tested over years and actually rely on.
No sponsored content. No affiliate recommendations for things we haven’t used ourselves. No advice shaped by partnerships or incentives. Just what seven years of living this way has actually taught us.
A Note on Honesty
I spent too many years leaving Airbnb reviews that were kind but incomplete. Softening feedback to protect a host’s feelings, rationalising problems I should have named, giving 5 stars to places that deserved 4 because I felt guilty about the impact.
I regret that, partly for myself and partly for the guests who came after and made decisions based on an incomplete picture. Homirenn is, in some small way, a correction of that. An attempt to say the things that are actually useful — to guests making real booking decisions and to hosts who, if they’re the kind of host worth writing for, genuinely want to know what’s working and what isn’t.
Most hosts do want to improve. Most guests do want practical, honest advice rather than generic positivity. That’s who this site is for.
Let’s Make Stays Better
Whether you’re arriving somewhere new next week or hosting guests in your space this weekend, I hope something here helps. That’s the whole point.
If you want new guides, tools, and honest insights when they’re published, the newsletter below is the easiest way to stay in the loop. No spam, no filler, just useful things when there’s something worth sharing.
— Renée