Airbnb for visit to family

[JennyPiano]

Whenever I see threads on here about visiting family, I’m always in awe of the number of people who advocate the renting of airbnbs or hotel stays as an alternative to staying in the houses of family members.

I’m sure I’ll be told to get a grip, but I’m trying to work out how to say to my parents (both in their 80s) that I’d like to visit them more, but stay in a rental when I do so. Basically, I left home when I was in my early 20s and am now in my mid 50s. I’m in the north of England they are almost 300 miles away in the south west. Back in the day, me, DH and our DC would stay with them when we visited, however DC are now grown up and I’m now single (with a partner I don’t live with) so I tend to visit them on my own.

basically, now they are older and I have a bit more flexibility, I’d like to be able to visit them more, say for a week or so every couple of months. The shift to remote working means that I could incorporate some working days as part of this which means less pressure on my annual leave. However, I can imagine the reaction when I tell them - it’ll be ‘oh no, we can make space for you to work here, you’re always welcome, it’s a shame to spend the money etc etc’. They are very kind and well meaning but I just feel that I’d like to be able to normalise things a bit and live my own life while popping in an out to see them, rather than feeling like a ‘visitor’!

Any advice for making the shift without them thinking I don’t like staying in their house?!

To be honest, I think it's a bit trickier when it's just you as an individual visiting another individual/couple who have a spare room for you. Typically, when we visit anyone and stay in an Airbnb, it's because we're a family of 4 (so in theory, requiring 3 beds and ideally 2 bedrooms) and most people don't actually have room for us. Actually, I don't know any of our friends who have even a spare room - let alone two - we're actually a bit of an outlier having a spare room, which is why people often come to us. So makes it easy as people can't actually fit us at their homes.

But as you want to work, I would just say that you need a separate private space to work, so you'll get somewhere that has an office set up and then you can come visit them in your off hours. You can even go so far as to blame your employer if you must. Say they will only authorise the remote working, if you can make the case that you have a proper workspace and it doesn't just look like a family visit where you don't want to be forced to take annual leave.

@mindutopia I agree, and I wish I’d addressed this many years ago when it wasn’t just me! I think using work as the reason might be a way forward, I’m thinking about roping DP in for a visit too and then it’d be even easier to say that we will be both be working at various points, his employer is quite strict etc

I’d be interested in hearing about this from the perspective of patents whose adult DC have moved away. Would you feel offended if they didn’t stay with you even if you had enough spare rooms? My gown up dc live locally so it isn’t an issue for now anyway.