My experience with Airbnb

When you are travelling and don’t want to stay in a hotel or hostel, maybe you need more privacy or just want to live like locals, you can rent a flat or house from locals. There are different websites for this, but I have only used Airbnb and can recommend it. I started to rent out my flat about a year ago. As it is my home and it is complicated for me to move out often, I only rent sometimes for a weekends or school holidays. Depending on where you live and your conditions you can look around on that website to find similar ads to have a picture how much to charge. Anyway it is a good way to earn some additional income, no matter where you live, there are probably people looking for accomodation. If you like to give it a try, you can sign up for free and there is a little gift if you sign up with these links – if you are planning to host, you will recieve 46 euros, which can be used on your next travel   https://www.airbnb.com/r/merlia?s=8&i=

If you are going to travel and searching for accomodation, you can sign up here http://www.airbnb.com/c/merlia  and recieve 19 euros.

I wish you all happy travelling.

I have met so many people from different countries, different cultures and backgrounds, I am truly happy for this opportunity to experience different cultures without going anywhere. Most of my guests have been from our neighbouring countries – Latvia, Russia and Finland, but I had also guests from Portugal, Poland, UK, Germany, Austria and furthest was from India.

Here are some photos from my window.

Ireland 15.-18.10.2016

First time in many years I travelled without my kids. I flied from Tallin to Dublin for 3 days with my mum. We arrived before sunset and took a local bus to city centre, which was much cheaper than airport bus. We didnt had much luggage, so we walked around a bit before going to our hostel. We needed to buy something for dinner, it wasnt easy to find supermarket, everything closes so early. We stayed in MEC Hostel in 6bed female dormitory, it was nice old building. Other girls in our room were nice and quiet, but I couldnt sleep well, my bed was next to the door and all night people were walking nosily in corridor.

16.10

We had our breakfast, it was traditional Irish breakfast, toast with eggs, jam and cheese, cereal with milk. And went to bus station, as we wanted to go to Galway for a day. It’s cheaper to buy return ticket, than 2 single. It’s an open ticket, you can use any time within 1 month. Bus took us across the Ireland to the west coast. The weather was nice all day, but soon after we arrived it started to rain and didn’t stop till morning. We left our things in hostel and tried to walk around a little. We didnt see much, but it is a very nice small town. We stayed at Barnacles Hostel in the main shopping street. It was a nice modern hostel. This time it was a 12bed mixed dormitory with 2 bathrooms inside the room. It was half booked only, and room was at the end of corridor, so it was quiet to sleep and I could sleep well.

Dublin

On the road

Galway

17.10

We had our breakfast, which was pretty much same like yesterday. It wasnt raining anymore, so we walked around a little and then took bus back to Dublin. In Dublin we had to walk with our luggage, which got heavier as we bought gifts. We went to see all the famous places before it got dark. Then just walked around, did some shopping and late evening we took a same bus to airport. We spent some hours there sleeping, as we had early morning flight at 6am to Tallin.

Daytrip to Finland 25.7.2016

If you have Vikingline membership card, which you can make for free, you will get 2 tickets for a day cruise to Helsinki in your birthday month as a gift. So my mother had a birthday in July, she got 2 tickets, I had couple of vouchers and we could get 8 tickets + a car for 60euros. Ok, there were 4 children under 11, which are free anyway. So off we went, me, my 3 kids, my mom, my brother and his 2 young daughters. We started our trip at 4am to cach 8am ferry from Tallin. It takes 2,5 hours. Theres plenty to do 0n a cruise ship. Children can play in a play area, there are several restaurants to enjoy your meal or you can walk around or sit on deck and enjoy the view.

As we had so many children with us and a car, we had a plan to go to Moomin World in Naantali near Turku. We didn’t  think we will drive that long, so half of the time we spent in car. Weather was beautiful and children absolutely loved Moomin World, it was in a really nice park, but nothing so interesting I would want to go there again. Anyway, children happy we drove back to Helsinki, we still had some time, so we went to another theme park to Linnanmäki. Entrance there is for free and kids can enjoy around 10 free rides. We didnt had much time there, kids definetely liked it and if I will go to Helsinki with them again, I will go there again. And that was it, our day finished and we headed back to our ferry.

Budapest, 17-19.05.2015

We arrived from Hurghada to Budapest at 12 midnight, as it was so late, we just spent a night in airport. From there we took a metro to city centre and went to search for our hostel, left the luggage there and went to explore the city. What a beautiful city! Modern Budapest is the result of a historic amalgamation of the separate cities of Buda and Pest (as well as the smaller and more distant Óbuda), and it is still typical to refer a restaurant on the “Buda side” or “living in Pest”. Administratively, the city is also divided into 23 numbered districts. We stayed in Pest number V district. They have most beautiful parliament building. When you travel with young children, you have to search for parks and stop in every playground, there are lot of parks in Budapest and some really cool playgrounds. In the river Danube there is a big island called Margaret island, there you could rent all kind of bikes to explore the island easily. It was fun. When it started to get late, we went back to hostel. We stayed in Activity Hostel, we had a big room for 4 with a long balcony and an amazing view to the Budapest Eye.

Next morning, after leaving luggage till evening in hostel we went walking to other side towards the City Park, in front of a park there was a Heroes Square (Hősök tere), in the middle of which is a Millenium Memorial. Park was very big and beautiful, at the far end there was a Zoo, where we went with children. Compared to other zoos I have been, it was very compact, but the most beautiful zoo and botanical gardens together, there were all the animals we wanted to see, was really fun for kids. When it started to get dark again, we went back for our luggage and headed to airport, our flight was 8am, so another night in airport.

Paphos 12-16.2.2015

I flied with my 3 kids from London to Cairo with change flights in Cyprus for 4 days, thats how I haved travelled so much, there are never direct flights, where I want to go or maybe there are, but a lot more expensive, so it was cheaper to stay 4 days in Cyprus than to fly directly to Egypt. This time I booked a hotel for our stay, as it was low season, we had a nice 1 bedroom apartment in Daphne Hotel Apartments with swimming pool, where was too cold to swim.

I lived before 9 months in Paphos in 2012-2013, it was nice to be back to see all the nice places. We stayed in Kato Paphos close to Papantoniu supermarket, sea and not far from bus station. We just went to walk to seaside, to harbour, I love sea, always dreamed to live in a town near the sea and few years from my life I have been lucky to have that dream come true. One day we walked to Pano Paphos, there in the middle was built new shopping centre, which was nice, there was really no big shopping centre, when I lived there. One day it was raining pretty heavily, it always rains there heavily, we rarely see so heavy rain in Estonia.

Last day morning we left the hotel, took a bus to central bus station, it was first time I used a bus in Paphos, I always used to walk everywhere, we had a lot of luggage, so it was better to take a bus. And then we took a bus to Larnaca, from where was our flight to Cairo in the evening.

I know it was not my last time in Cyprus, I still need to go back, there are things need to be finished. As I really like that big Island, I will be happy to go there again.

Edinburgh, 25.10.2014

Happy 7th birthday to my twins! We took a morning train from Birmingham to Edinburgh. My mum was with us, she had only arrived to England yesterday. After several hours looking at beautiful Scottish landscape, we finally arrived. We had a few hours only to walk around in Edinburgh before we headed to airport. Visited market street and castle outside. Kids found a funny mirror outside of a bar, the kind of mirror showing you all kind of funny shapes. It was a bit rainy, coming down from castle high narrow stairs was a bit scary. It’s  very beautiful town, I would definitely like to visit again.

Turkey 25.10-4.11.2014

I flied to Turkey with my mum and 3 children, from Edinburgh to Dalaman airport. It was last EasyJet flight, so it was very cheap. We arrived late, so we took a taxi to Fethiye straight to the hotel. It was a small hotel, season was finished and guests gone home, looked a bit abandoned. Next day in the morning we went to explore the town, went straight to beach and walked until town centre. It was too cold to swim, a lot of fishermen. A beautiful small town with historical places.

Then we took a bus to Pamukkale (meaning “cotton castle” in Turkish). The most amazing place I’ve been to, so beautifully white and that warm water. Looks like an ice. We spent a night there in Grand Sevgi spa hotel.

Next day in the morning we took a bus to Denizli. From where took a bus to Side, where we stayed 4 nights in Anthos Garden Apart Hotel. Season was finished and we were almost only guests. Hotel was nice, close to the town centre. There are lot of archeological sites in Side and nice beach. We took a day trip to Taurus mountains, Green lake, visited orange gardens.

Egypt 19.01-10.02.2013