- Jolie Holland has been a touring musician for 20 years.
- She says she was excited about Airbnb but she is no longer a fan.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jolie Holland, a 47-year-old musician from Los Angeles, California. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
I've been a touring musician for 20 years, so when I say I've experienced it all — from hotels to Airbnbs to motels — you can believe it. Some years, I spend up to three months on the road.
When I first heard about Airbnb in the early 2010s, I thought it would change the way I experienced touring.
A friend of mine told me about it. I was excited, both as someone who requires lodging often and someone who has to leave their house behind, unlived in.
But I never could've imagined what it would become.
Here's the thing: Hotels really suck as a woman musician
Because gigs often end late at night or even in the middle of the night, I would find myself checking into a hotel in the wee hours — often decked out in stage clothes and makeup like fishnets and heavy eyeliner.
Sometimes, I'd be checking in with four or five guys who were touring with me, and even though I was the person paying for the room, the hotel clerks would often talk to the guys I was with instead of me.
There was always this intense air of judgment. It felt like a blend of sexism and slut-shaming and I wanted to be like: "Hello, I'm a businessperson and should be treated like one." There was always this undertone of antagonism as a woman checking into a hotel late at night or early in the morning.
You can see why I was excited about Airbnbs
The idea of not having to check in with a clerk was awesome, and I also liked the idea of being able to stay with the whole band in one place.
It felt like a good chance for camaraderie that can be missing when you're staying in separate hotel rooms. Even though there's not a lot of time for hanging out with each other — if we're in a hotel or Airbnb, we're just trying to get some sleep before the next day's events — it was still nice to have that space to even make coffee together in the morning.
Airbnbs were nice for a time, but that time is long gone
I'm no longer an Airbnb fan. There were just too many hitches in the service.
One of the things I think we took for granted with hotels was the uniformity of cleanliness standards — you know what to expect. In Airbnbs, I've often found that the focus is on decor over functionality.
Sometimes I'll check into a rental in the middle of the night, and it's a cute little house but there's no toilet paper, or you can tell that someone was underpaid to clean it badly. And if something goes wrong with check-in in the middle of the night, there's often no one to turn to for help. With a hotel, there's obviously always an employee on site.
Airbnb has also made a mess out of an already messed-up housing and rental market
I live in Los Angeles and I see it around me. Neighborhoods and microcultures are being swallowed up by rental companies, instead of actual families who are making their lives there.
It feels like we've very much reached the end nightmare of late-stage capitalism, where people can't afford to buy houses because Wall Street investors have turned them into short-term rentals.
Now that it's clear how destructive Airbnb is to actual people living in the neighborhoods they're operating in — with raising prices and making it difficult for people to afford home ownership — it seals the deal for me: I'm going back to hotels.