You’ve decided it’s time for a getaway, you’ve booked the flights and like many thousands of people, Airbnb is your go-to accommodation site. But once you get deep into your search, it can soon become time-consuming. Filtering out by price or specific location still brings up an array of choices that takes time to go through. Not to mention needing to research whether the district you’ve chosen is safe for tourists to stay in.
We can always use a mix of our own personal travel experience and judge by the photos online but can we really rely on the place being as described or even if it’s located in a tourist-safe area?
The Tool to Solve Your Airbnb Problems
Beñat Arregi has developed a platform that will help people understand where the best located Airbnb places are according to the people who have stayed there.
The maps are produced using the star-rating system that Airbnb customers submit to after staying in an Airbnb accommodation. Each rating represents their overall perception and feel for the area and what this platform does is mark the rating as a colour-coded spot on the map of each city.
The advantage of this is a quick and easy reference to define the best locations. This means no more secondary research into whether the location is safe enough and gives a solid feel from other users that it’s a definite yes or no.
Step-by-Step Guide to Using Airbnbmaps
The advantage of using this tool is it can help Airbnb users to quickly identify good quality accommodations and make sure it’s in a safe area at the same time.
The amount of different cities is gradually increasing but there are already well-established maps for more popular places such as London, Paris, New York and Sydney.
First, pick the map of your visiting city and you’ll see dots of different colours: red, orange, yellow, light green and dark green. Red represents the lower 1-star ratings while dark green represents the 5-star ratings – the other colours show all in between.
Let’s use London as an example.
Here you can see the overall map showing most 5-star ratings (green dots) are in the centre.
Once you have the map you can either zoom in closer to see more specifically where the dots are located or alternatively type in a specific area if you have one in mind.
Here, the area of Covent Garden has been typed in and the map shows the location of all the rated Airbnbs.
All you have to do is zoom in and hover over any dot to reveal the address and rating of each place. Once you’ve found one you’re interested in, simply click on the dot and it will provide you with a link straight to the Airbnb listing on the main site.
Listing on main Airbnb site:
The idea of this tool is to bring together elements of location, safety and quality of Airbnb accommodation in one convenient place. This makes it much easier for people to find a decent and well-located place to stay in a city they may not be familiar with.
At the moment, access to these maps are free of charge and growing by the day. Just don’t forget to rate your Airbnb place to help others find a great ‘home away from home’ to stay on their holiday!
