Lateral Thinking About Accommodation....

On my recent work trip to the USA I was keen to avoid standard hotel accommodation and instead tried to stay in places that gave me a much more organic view of neighbourhoods and people in them. I used the fast-growing-in-use collaborative consumption tool AirBnB to facilitate this. In Seattle I stayed in the creative, student-centred neighbourhood of Capitol Hill, close to numerous creative food enterprises (fantastic!). My accommodation was listed as "Charming 1br in Capitol Hill" and it lived up wonderfully to that description. Perhaps the quirkiest and most wonderful thing about the experience is that I was actually staying in somebody's "lived in" one bedroom apartment. When guests arrive the host greets you and then moves out for the length of your stay - and then moves back in afterwards. I couldn't think of a more authentic experience of Capitol Hill!