Welcome to the Live Anywhere on Airbnb Community Space

[Kirsten]

Hi, I’m Kirsten on the Live Anywhere on Airbnb team. We created this space so that you and other Live Anywhere on Airbnb participants have a dedicated place to meet and support one another. We plan to use this space to share program updates, and we encourage you to use this space to share updates and insights from your travels.

To start, let’s get to know each other a bit more. While some of you met during the informational sessions, we’d love it if you could please re-introduce yourself to the full group here - include where you’re from, who you’re traveling with and where your Live Anywhere on Airbnb journey will take you first!

Thank you for being a part of this program and happy travels!

Kirsten & the Live Anywhere on Airbnb team

As always, please remember to keep the Community Center Guidelines in mind when you interact in this group.

[Will2518]

Hey everyone! ☀️ We’re Will & Steven, and we'll be traveling together this year. We’re 2 best friends who left France after college to go live abroad. We moved to the UK together over 10 years ago, and Will later moved to the US to join his husband, who he met while traveling. We've had the chance to visit 40+ countries so far, and we're excited to resume traveling this year.

We started our nomadic journey in June '21 in London, and since then we've travelled to Tenerife, Provence and Lisbon. We're now in Valencia and have one more (quick) stop in Malta before starting our Live Anywhere journey in Chania (Crete). 🎉 Because of COVID restrictions, our next destinations are still TBD but we're hoping to go to Asia for 6+ months,  starting w/ Korea and then Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand & more.

Looking forward to learning more about everyone's plans! 😃

Thanks!
Will & Steven (@steven1190)

[Maria-Luisa34]

Hi everybody,

here María transmitting from Buenos Aires.  (I love to be 34 again! Thanks Airbnb for naming me as such) 

I would have loved to be already on the go but departing from Argentina these days is quite tricky. Flight cancellations, authorizations, etc etc.

Planning to join the nomad tribe by September 13th.  First stop NY.

Hope you are all having a good start in these tricky times.

best,

María

[Jonathan1580]

Hello everyone. I am Jonathan from Canada. I cycled around the world for 4 years in the precovid era. I was invited to many homes and slept hundreds of nights in my tent under the stars of 40 countries.  While doing this, I was writing for some magazines and newspapers, I wrote a first book and filmed many videos along the way. I plan to use this next year's opportunity to finally finish my second book about those cycling adventures.

I will be travelling with my girlfriend Gabrielle who's a lawyer and will be on a sabbatical. 

We leave on September 30th for Morocco, and then Albania and Slovenia. Without a bike this time ! I am not too sure how and what to pack in a massive suitcase but it's a pretty good problem to have !

[Stephanie2009]

Hi everyone! We're Steph, Pete, & Hays.

We had been living in Chattanooga, TN (where I'm from) for the last six years, but Pete is from Exeter, UK and we met in Shanghai, China. We've also lived in London and Mumbai together. Hays was born in October, 2019 and we've always talked about traveling for a year while he's still young. We were planning on doing that in 2023ish, but saw this amazing opportunity and thought we'd give it a shot! I used to work in tourism, and Pete ran an after-school soccer program through our city's soccer team (Chattanooga Football Club), but we both quit our full-time jobs to explore for the year. Pete's still working part-time, and I plan to pick up some projects along the way, but we're thrilled to be able to spend this year with Hays and see the world.

We're currently in Rome until the end of September and then basing ourselves in Athens for October. After that, we're not too sure! (And it depends on what countries the UK is allowing people to enter from, as we'll see Pete's family in November.) We're so excited, so grateful for the opportunity, and so honored to be among such an amazing group of participants!

Shall we all meet up at the end in a fabulous Airbnb somewhere? 😉

[James2847]

Hi all! 

So excited to be part of this community group and to share some adventures with you all over the next year!

We're James, Steph and baby Rupert, who is now 7-months old and trying his best to be the wriggliest human on the planet. I'm (James) is from Stratford-Upon-Avon, which is a beautiful (but quiet) small town in rural England, and Steph is a sea-side spirit from Plymouth on the South Coast of Devon (not far from Pete @Stephanie2009! Are you in the UK for Christmas?!). Little Rupert is too young to be talking yet (just smiles and shouts), but if he did he might have a slight Brummie accent like his Grandma Cathy - one of the friendliest and most welcoming in the UK.

Steph and I met in Cardiff the capital of Wales (and the best place to watch Rugby in the world) almost 10-years ago now and got engaged in Mauritius in March 2020 - a lucky pre-lockdown last trip! Like you all, we're huge travel fans, and love nothing more than escaping to somewhere new, experiencing new things and seeing what are the weirdest things we can find on the menu! I'm a surgeon, and working in global health research with half of my time, and Steph is a dentist (so no refined sugar for Rupert for a while...). We've been struck by just how amazingly supportive both our bosses, families and colleagues have been, and everything has fallen into place perfectly to launch in a couple of weeks time.

The arrival on little Rupert has given a whole new meaning to the word adventure, and massive thanks to Airbnb, @Kirsten and the team for the best possible start to his little life. The photo montage at his wedding wearing a Kimono in Japan, traditional pantalones in Guatemala, and a Lei in Hawaii will go down a treat we hope! 

After much planning and thinking we are starting our journey in Curaçao, a beautiful little Dutch Caribbean island off the coast of Venezula, at an incredible Airbnb on a flamingo sanctuary (I mean...!). We are then going off the Airbnb grid for a fortnight to do a research trip to Veracruz, Mexico (not far from Oaxaca, Mexico we hear Peta & Ben!) before settling into an amazing Colonial Villa Airbnb in Antigua, Guatemala with volcano views for breakfast.

Our hosts have already been so incredible. Maria Marta in Antigua has already kindly found us a comfy travel crib for Rupert which she hadn't previously advertised, and Anneke in Curaçao  has linked us to the local horseriding school for Rupert's first horseback (well on Dad's back on horseback..!) adventure !  

We're not fully set on our plans for the new year, but are still aiming for five (or hopefully six) continental stops - perhaps Cape Town, Kerala, Philippines, Japan, Boston, Italy depending on COVID limitations... Rupert has been enjoying chewing on his first Atlas to celebrate! 

Look forward to keeping in touch through this group, and we hope to meet some of you fellow nomads on the way. We hope we can ask for some tips on good local spots along the way!

James, Steph & Ru

  

[Stephanie2009]

Unfortunately we won't be in the UK for Christmas! We'll actually be there for Thanksgiving, as we had already taken time off work for that and usually travel with my family during the Christmas holidays.

[Lindsey310]

Hi Everyone! I'm Lindsey, and my amazing traveling family consists of Anna (14) and my mom (age undisclosed). 
Anna is the real star of our family, as a wheelchair user she has started building an online platform to share how accessible travel can be for kids like hers and families like ours. 

We live most of the time in a cute, tiny town outside of Washington DC called Chesapeake Beach. We love being near the water, so it's hard to travel sometimes (but not too hard!). We also feel like Cozumel is our second home, and right before the pandemic my mom and Anna lived full-time on the island as I traveled back and forth for work. Now I'm fully remote as the organization I work for runs programs in Nepal, and ready to travel full time again. 
Our plan, mostly because of potential Covid complications, is to do one major US-based road trip. We're starting in Portland, Maine, traveling down to Rhode Island, then down to Savannah for Christmas. After that, we head west to Albuquerque and from there we'll need up the west coast... but the details are fuzzy. 

There's a chance that we will pop over to Japan while we're in the Pac Northwest, but that will be up in the air until spring and we know how things are shaping up for international travel. It was the one place Anna was really hoping we would go! 

We're also traveling along with Alpha, the very old and stinky dog, and George, the less old and probably less stinky cat. 

I think that covers it for now! I think we're the only ones with a kid in school, but happy to provide any thoughts or ideas on how we've managed adventure schooling for the past 6 years. 

Can't wait to connect more over this next year. 
Lindsey

Oh, you can follow Anna on Instagram at therealannamiller to see her updates so far. We don't start our Live Anywhere travel until Sept 25, and we're so excited!

[Hendric14]

Hello everyone! Hendric here. A little late to the conversation as we're only just about to start! It's super exciting and I'll be travelling with my teammates Cherie, Kimberly, and Clarence!

We're all from The Travel Intern (@TheTravelIntern, we're on every platform with the same name)), a community of travel content creators based in Singapore and we're really looking forward to exploring again. We've been doing this for about 5years now, travelling in and out of Singapore, however this is the first time we'll be travelling together for a longer period. It'll be interesting to help shape the future of long term living, especially during this time!

We're starting our journey in Singapore, because we think that it's a great travel hub and would love to introduce the country to more people around the world. Following Singapore, we'll be moving to Europe! Here's our really rough plan. Please let us know if you are around the country!

- Croatia (Oct)

- Germany (Nov)

- Austria (Dec)

- Spain (Jan)

- Ireland (Feb)

- Indonesia (Mar)
- Japan (Apr)
- Philippines (May)

We're keeping things really flexible due to the pandemic, but also that's how we prefer. Let the opportunities and feelings guide us along the way.

I guess what's interesting about our group is that we're treating this as an opportunity to figure out remote working with the community/teams back in Singapore. Our day-to-day job continues, so we'll still be jumping on calls back with the team or clients in Singapore. If anyone has tips on navigating timezones please let us know!

Also, things are a little muted here in Singapore and everyone is still quite worried about outbound travel. We hope that through our journey, we can also inspire others to travel safely and transition into a world where we recognise covid-19 as endemic.

That's all! Hope to meet some of you soon!

[Hendric14]

Left to right: Clarence, Cherie, Hendric, Kimberly

[Colin505]

Hey guys! Late to the game as well, my name is Colin and along with my wife (Meg) and our two daughters (Charlotte & Liv) are very excited for this upcoming year too! 

We started on the 1st of Sept in Alaska and are sadly only a few days left of our first month. We've loved this flexible way of traveling and how this lifestyle has already shown us how to balance between work and fun so well. I'm a graphic designer and video editor by trade and run my own design studio based in South Carolina and have always dreamed of living a nomadic lifestyle. 

We have booked all our Airbnbs for the first 'semester' and will be in Europe from here on out. I hope we can make it to Asia in 2022 so we can squeeze in some time with family and enjoy some warmer weather. Nice to meet all you guys! 

[James2835]

Hello all! Sorry for being late to the post - I’ve had issues getting access to my account and been super busy with my first weeks at school!

I’m James Joseph Boyle and I’m Living Anywhere with long stays in London as I study my first year at RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) with my companion and fellow classmate, Jack Ambrose. We will both be living between 6 weeks to 3 months around London with Airbnb throughout the year as we study on a very intense undergraduate three year course to become professional actors. 

We both aim to visit as many art exhibitions, theatre productions, shows, museums, events, talks and lots of exciting activities over the year and journal our experiences for both school and for this programme. It’s been incredibly intense these first three weeks but we are getting used to the routine and adjusting! We are booked at the moment from Sept-April next year and will be looking for somewhere to live for Spring and Summer. 

If we both have time, we may both potentially visit Japan and south America. I am profoundly deaf and a part of the deaf community and with sign language as my first language, I want to explore different communities of deaf people and integrate my experiences into future performances as an actor and artist. It will all depend on what our RADA course demands this year on the programme. 

So far, the experience has been incredible. We are currently living at Old Street in St Lukes (not far from Shoreditch) and it’s the perfect place for us to get to RADA and also to be near all bars, restaurants and leisure activities, besides being a quiet area that feels safe. We’re going to miss living here as we downsize, but move to Brick Lane. Updates coming soon to social media! 🐵 

Hopefully we will have the opportunity to meet you guys at some point! 

[Marquita4]

Hi Everyone!

I’m just seeing this thread after popping on to this platform to confirm I didn’t miss any updates. I guess it’s better late than ever!?

I’m Marquita an editor/writer from the U.S. and I’ll be traveling solo for this experience. I began my journey mid-September, with my first stop in Barcelona, which has been lovely. It has truly been a dream experience: from the Airbnb, to the neighborhood…to the energy of city in general.

When I’m not taking in the sites and roaming the streets by day, I’ll continue to work as an editor/ freelance as a writer in the evenings.

As many people in my industry head back into the office, I hope to further explore the benefits of being a digital nomad and, like Hendric, inspire others to travel again. 

Regarding my travel plans, I’m trying to remain as open as possible considering the restrictive covid climate. I’ll likely be focusing on cities that are either very walkable or have great public transportation, since I’m solo.

Though I’m usually a planner, I really love the idea of not quite knowing where I’ll be in the near future. 

I would love to meet everyone face-to-face some day!

Wishing everyone an amazing first trip and beyond!