I am now homeless - living on Airbnb for months

I'm doing almost the same thing!<p>Homeless for a year (at least): living in 12 countries for one month each, staying mostly at places found on airbnb.com. (Staying in each place for one month each.)<p>Currently in Amsterdam at this place: <a href="http://www.airbnb.com/rooms/23023" rel="nofollow">http://www.airbnb.com/rooms/23023</a><p>Sitting on that red couch writing all day. Everything I own in one suitcase upstairs. (Except my bike, outside.)<p>I love it. Thanks airbnb. :-)

I tried doing this when I moved to NYC last year. I had not been in the area for 10 years and wanted to try out a few neighborhoods before committing to a lease.<p>Ultimately, I found the experience too stressful. Too much time and energy was expended trying to figure out the next place to stay. I was working, and looking for housing took up most of my time outside of work. If you don't have to work, it's probably a better experience.<p>AirBNB wasn't as useful as I had hoped. Here are the issues I remember:<p>- there weren't as many listings as craigslist by an order of magnitude - people would take too long to respond - people would flake out at the last minute<p>- people would list something available for certain dates, but it wouldn't really be available on a portion of the dates<p>- people would require minimum stays that they didn't list<p>- people were already becoming mini-hoteliers and trying to charge prices in line with actual hotels<p>- the mini-hotelier people were wanting security deposits up to $500

Hmm.<p>Prices in SF on AirBnb range from $50 (very low end) to about $80-100. Assuming you stay 30 nights at $60, that's $1,800. The apartment room he used to stay in probably cost him $800, so it's about $1000 more expensive to use Airbnb.<p>The publicity they have received just today has probably more than made up the difference in cost.

"Dog-fooding" in the extreme? An interesting experiment.<p>Having travelled extensively for work, living in hotels for months, and waking at three in the morning thinking "What country am I in?", I can't help feel that this will pall fairly quickly.<p>I look forward to the updates.<p>+ <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food</a><p>+ <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dogfooding+(to+dogfood)" rel="nofollow">http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dogfooding+(t...</a><p>+ <a href="http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/01/the-ultimate-dogfooding-story.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/01/the-ultimate-dogfoo...</a>

<i>By using Airbnb everyday, I will get to know the product and the people like never before. </i><p>Worth it just for this, I bet any "niggles" in Airbnb will be worked out pretty quickly :D

Ever since first hearing about Airbnb here, I've thought over and over about what an amazing place to work it sounds. This just confirms it: one of the founders truly digs into what creating a startup means (no better customer development than using your product more than anyone else). Plus he sounds like a really cool guy.

What's the difference between Airbnb and Couch Surfing?<p>You have to pay for Airbnb but do get a bed? I do like the idea of Airbnb and hope to be able to try it soon.

How much dogfood do you need to eat before you turn into a dog?

"If I need a lot of space for a week, I can rent a spacious apartment. If I want to have a dinner party, I can rent a chic loft to host guests. If I plan to work late, I can rent a minimal space close to the office."<p>Yes, you <i>can</i> do that, if you have loads of disposable income.

Man, I was trying to write a science fiction story about a homeless (in a similar way) technology consultant a year ago, but I couldn't come up with an interesting plot.<p>I guess the problem was that it was already too close to be science fiction.

One cool thing about this is what it does to the marginal cost of travelling. Assuming the place he would travel to has rooms for about the same as what he's paying in SF, the marginal housing cost of traveling becomes 0, which would make it a lot more financially feasible to travel frequently, especially to places nearby enough that travel costs are low.<p>Now, he's a startup founder and probably doesn't have a whole lot of time to do so, but if someone with a less demanding life did it, they could travel a lot.

awesome idea. how much more does this cost than renting a place?

How does he deal with physical mail and official addresses for taxes, etc? (this has been a pain for me in the past)

Sounds like it could be fun, but I just can't cut my possessions down that much. My passion for motorcycling (bikes + tools) books (I have a kindle, but textbooks are heavy) and electronics (more tools) pretty much sees to that.<p>A small truck bed more than suffices, but not one suitcase.

well, impressive, indeed, that is the cutting edge of "use your on product" mantra.<p>Thinking a bit more about this principle of use it your own, be happy you are not the founder of amazon or ebay, in those cases you would have have to start buying all items available on the shop.<p>Looking forward reading updates about this journey.

you can find a good room in SF for ~$600/mo on craigslist