Do not go to Kansas City BBQ thinking it will be good BBQ. Go for the Top Gun experience, have a beer, eat somewhere else.
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What an awful rating system protocol.
Basically, each person (guest and host) has 14 days to review the other person. IMO, that window is way too big. Should be just a few days tops since itās easy to confuse guests and who stayed where and all that.
Honestly, I normally review immediately and pretty much always do review. If a place is bad (but not nightmare bad) then I donāt review. Have never written a negative review on AirBnB in my life. Unless itās a blatant scam, I probably never will.
As for the situation mentioned by me earlier, I never got a response about it from the host and there was no adjustment to the review I received after I responded to it. Havenāt tried to reserve an AirBnB yet and probably wonāt until January. No idea how itāll work out.
Just found out that Iāll be going to Rio de Janeiro in October. Mostly for work, but Iāll have about 1 day worth of free time. Any recs on what I should do? @Fossilkid93 ?
Right now the plan is to just do the touristy stuff since itās a short trip, but Iād welcome other ideas.
Rio is tied with Paris and Istanbul for me as my top city. Itās pretty hard to fuck up any trip there. With only 1 day I think Iād for sure just be hanging out somewhere along Leblon-Ipanema-Copacabana (Copacabana will have the most action, the others are still fun but a bit more upscale and slightly more chill) and taking in the vibe (which is unmatched anywhere else on Earth that Iāve seen). Walk around a bit, buy a caipirinha or 3, and people watch. If you wanna see a bit more, they have (or at least had a couple years ago) a great bikeshare system, so you could pick up a bike in Leblon, bike along the boardwalk thru Ipanema and Copacabana, maybe even up to Botafogo and Flamengo, which are both pretty cool and slightly lesser known.
The touristy stuff is mostly pretty cool. Sugarloaf and Christ the Redeemer are good, but will monopolize a lot of the day, so Iām not sure Iād do it with only 1 free day, maybe if you can wrangle another day or 2. Avoid the yellow tram in Santa Teresa, itās terrible.
If you wanted to get really adventurous, thereās the Morro Dois IrmĆ£os. Itās a small peak overlooking the city with immaculate views. You have to go through a favela to get there, but itās a pretty chill favela and you could hire a motorbike to go from the bottom to the top. After that, itās about a 20 minute hike to the lookout point. We took a pic there:
But really for me, the charm of Rio is the unrivaled vibe and people watching along the boardwalk. Chill on the beach a bit with a caiprinha, walk/bike along the boardwalk, find a little restaurant along the beach for lunch, walk a bit more, rinse/repeat.
#2 thing would probably be to get to nice viewpoint (Sugarload, Cristo Redentor, Dois IrmĆ£os, there are several spots with solid views), to get a panorama of the city b/c it really is an immaculate setting for a city.
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This is perfect. Thanks.
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Sorry - not going until Spring.
Anybody ever visit Sicily in February? My school break is quite early in the year (first week of February) and I think itād be a good time to visit with fewer tourists and cooler weather.
Looking for experiences others had visiting Sicily during normally winter months.
Anyone want to offer any advice for Montreal in October? Iām tentatively planning a weekend trip (2 or 3 nights) w/ my wife & teenage daughter.
Is it worth seeking out the famous bagel shops (Fairmount Bagel) and smoked meat (Schwartz Deli) or are there same quality bagels/smoked meats everywhere?
Just stay in Old Montreal or is it too touristy? Better to stay in Plateau Mont-Royal? There doesnāt seem to be many hotels there.
I personally think St. Viateur is the best for bagels and Schwartzās is best for smoked meat, but I havenāt tried that many other places.
Also hit up a good poutine place. La Banquise is one of the more famous ones, but I think that all the good poutine places are good.
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All the hotels are in Old Montreal and the financial district, but those are the least intersting places to go. So youāll want to plan to take Ubers or the subway to get around.
Our last stay in Montreal we stayed here and liked it:
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Iāll defer to others as I havenāt lived there for 10 years and a lot has changed. The subway system is pretty great, so Iād plan on using that a lot. Le Plateau is probably where Iād stay, but I think Saint-Henri/Griffintown area has improved immensely.
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Wellington St in Verdun has become a cool place as well.
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Make sure to go to the top of Mont Royal if you have the time
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I was planning my trip to Sicily this February and was looking for an airbnb to reserve in Catania for the beginning of my trip (which coincides with the Festival of Saint Agatha, the patron saint of Catania). I saw a place that appeared to be good value at about $35/night for a room in a flat and for seemingly no reason a discount was applied to it. It wasnāt mentioned in the breakdown of the bill. Just went from around 800 CZK per night to a bit below 500 per night after a few seconds of looking at the listing. No reason given or anything like that.
Got my conspiracy hat on and Iām wondering if Airbnb applied some kind of discount without telling me due to the bullshit negative Airbnb review. Or maybe Iām just crazy lucky for some reason. No freaking idea but I am super happy to pay the way cheaper cost.
Bit of an update to my story.
So my wife and I took a bit of a gamble (what can I say, Iām a pro poker player) by buying a 5-year visa to live in Bangkok without ever having even visited SE Asia before. Based on what Iād read online and the types of cities we love most (CDMX, Istanbul, etc.) and the fact we both prefer hot weather, I was like 95+% sure weād like it, so we went YOLO mode.
We arrived on Oct 2 and were pretty sure within a few hours weād love it and now after 10 days I can say that this city is awesome!
TBH, we havenāt even done a lot of the best stuff either, like visit Old Town, the Palace, the best Temples, floating markets, etc. Weāve barely scratched the surface and are already loving it.
The city just feels so alive and has the perfect amount of chaos (read: A LOT) for us and the food, OMG the food! Itās a godsend after coming from Romania, where most dishes were quite bland. Thais really know how to season their dishes and pretty much every meal weāve had has been an 8+/10. Iām not usually one for sugary drinks, so the abundant coco waters are a godsend. I also delved into some smoothies, which I hope had no added sugar, a natural cane sugar smoothie (incredible) a coco smoothie, and mango smoothie. All were so good and relatively healthy, I hope.
Weāve spent the past 10 days speedrunning a couple potential zones to live and hoping to land a pet friendly apartment. There are some newer places with sick amenities, but with our budget, they tended to be a bit away from the action. As luck would have it, we found a place in a dream location. Itās only a 3 minute walk from Benchakitti Parkās northern area with a dog park (we have our Chihuahua with us, so this will be nice) and a sports complex, with covered basketball, pickle ball, and futsal courts. Iām pretty amped to lead a more active lifestyle, which should be a breeze with all those sports at my disposal. Also will be really nice to have a ton of green space next door for when we want to escape the noise of the city for a moment.
Bangkok seems like a city where you could just pick a random metro stop, get out, and find something fascinating. Itās also got that cyber punk vibe, which I really love. A couple cyber punk-esque pics Iāve taken so far:
I can already tell itās gonna be hard as hell to leave this place once our 5 years are up.
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I know youāre a polyglot, but can either of you speak Thai?
Nope, I started learning a month before arriving but so far have only learned the alphabet and a vocab of around 75 words. Weāre hoping to become fluent, but realistically it could take like 2-3 years as itās a pretty difficult language.
Have you learned to ask, āWhere is the ping pong show?ā