What to do with my listing when I'm on vacation?

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I’m planning to vacation in Europe for a couple weeks this summer. I’ve had the dates blocked out on my calendar for months for planned improvements to the listing, so no guests will be at my listing during that time. My concern is that I don’t know for certain if I’ll have internet access all the time when I’m away. It’s fairly unlikely that I’ll be without it for more than half a day, but that still leaves the possibility that I won’t be able to respond promptly to inquiries/requests.

Is the right thing to do to snooze my listing when I’m away so I don’t have to worry about it, or will that have some other side effects?

I have instant book on and based on history, it’s fairly unlikely that I’ll receive any inquiries/requests and even less likely that they would coincide with any short periods I would be without internet access. So I’m really tempted to just risk it.

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Do you have a friend who hosts who could help manage your responses while you are away?

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Hmm…snoozing your account might be a good thing at least as a temp solution. If you can afford to do so.

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Unfortunately, we don’t know anyone else that hosts, nor do we have anyone else that’s completely familiar with the listing.

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Money isn’t really a concern. It would be for at most 17 days. Also, because it’s the slow season in Phoenix, I don’t expect any booking made during that time to be for a reservation that starts before October 1, so there’s plenty of time to book those missed opportunities.

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Then snoozing would be the best option for you! Some times it is really hard to judge unless you know the demographics, low/high season etc. thank for the add’l info!

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When we go away, I create a closed period for the period, plus another day at the tail end to do a clean/dust through. People can still see your open dates when they search.

We’ve just come back from Croatia where wifi (pronounced wee fee over there…) was readily available everywhere, as it was in Italy, France and Spain last year.

Europe is pretty much wifi’d up, apart from some very remote areas. We’re really getting very civilised these days.

Do you not have 4G ?

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Was in France for 2 months 2 years ago and had someone cohosting for me, but still checked my listing every day for reservations. Don’t know what WiFi is like in most countries but it was really pretty good in France.

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Absolutely no need to snooze your listing.
Free fast WiFi is everywhere. If you make sure you check once every 24 hours there is no problem.

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What is a “closed period”? I’ve already blocked the dates, but I during that same period, I also want to prevent guests from submitting inquiries and reservations requests for ANY dates.

I have T-Mobil in the US. They include “free unlimited data” over pretty much all of Europe. Unfortunately, the speed is a ridiculously low 128kbps and over the past 3 years, I’ve found it unusable. However, since you mentioned it, I just checked and they are now offering 4G LTE for $5/day. It’s a pain in the butt since I have to manually renew it every single day, but it should solve any lack of internet access I might have.

Coincidentally, Croatia is one of the places we’re considering.

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Definitely not everywhere. We had a house in southern Poland last year with no internet. I prefer to rent a quiet house in the country and take day trips to nearby tourist attractions, but with that in mind, you’re still correct that it’s likely I’ll be able to access internet at least once every 24 hours. Plus now, I have the $5/day 4G LTE plan as a backup, so there’s definitely no need to snooze.

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I was in Spain recently and used MyWebSpot, they mail you the hotspot ahead of time and you mail it back. Fast and unlimited data
Here is a 5% off link

RR

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So in this case it was your choice.
But everywhere you go, almost every bar, restaurant and shopping mall has free WiFi.

You can get apps for your phone that show you all free WiFi hotspots on a map.

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LOL, true, the house was owned by some friends of ours. I’m definitely not planning my vacations around WiFi access, though.

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I love that. One of my very best dog clients is Croatian. Though she has lived in this country since the 1990s she still has a strong accent and I often have to say “I’m sorry, I just can’t tell what you are saying.” Her dog is here now while the home is being visited by an exterminator. Her dog has an e-collar on due to a sore on his face and she was asking me if he would be able to “leak” the floor with it on. I really couldn’t understand how a collar on his neck would prevent him from leaking on the floor! After about 4 tries I determined that she was asking if Hobbes would be able to lick the floor. :rofl:

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Almost as funny was figuring out that the Kiwis at my friend’s house when I visited New Zealand were saying we should go out on the deck (wooden exterior patio). Because what I heard was “Let’s go out on the dick.”

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Sorry, the term used by Lodgify for creating a closed period for days/weeks, rather than snoozing.

You can bu y a 3Mobile f 24 gig data sim from Amazon for £45, allegedly the fastest network available, and should last for 35 days.

We also have a portable hotspot app on one of our phones, as RRR suggests. It’s great for when all else fails!

As for Croatia, we enjoyed some if it but would not go back, at least, not for a while. It has become eye wateringly expensive, yet the average wage/income is very low. To add insult to injury, people are still feeling such pain after the civil war to separate from Yugoslavia/Serbia 20 years ago. It’s palpable. Most of the younger generation simply want to leave for a better life.

The local wine is very good, and in the shop £4-5 per litre. In a decent restaurant it’s £25-£33 for a 70cl bottle…

Spilt is a lovely city, as is Dubrovnik, although it was my first immersion into selfie stick culture. It was so awful, we ran for the back streets and a quiet bar! I was really shocked at the narcissism on display, literally around every corner. The coastal mainland is being developed for tourism at speed and it’s not hard to fear for the country’s future.

If you go, watch out for the cost of taxis from the airport. We were charged 60% more than the return trip from where we were staying. They do have Uber.

I wish we’d gone to the islands, Hvar and Brac in particular, but the weather was poor. But it’s easy to get from Split airport quickly down to the ferry port in Split, and tickets are cheap around midday, i.e. not for day trippers going out early.

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I would’ve fell out of my chair if I heard “Let’s go sit on the dick”

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We’ve had a few guests from the U.S. who’ve had issues with their mobile access, when using a U.S. carrier in Spain. Those that are here for longer than a few days often buy a local pre paid SIM, often as cheap as €15. Obviously, the more data you want, the more expensive it’ll be.

https://simcard.spainsur.com/ has a selection from several operators.

That said, free WiFi is everywhere, not just Spain, but across Europe. Most bars and restaurants have it, and many cities offer free access within central zones, provided by the local authorities.

We had a couple of guests from the U.S. recently who got 3* from me for comms, their excuse being they couldn’t find free WiFi in the town they’d been in before us. Knowing the town, it said to me that they hadn’t tried very hard!

JF

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I know when I’m on vacation one of the most annoying things is having to answer Airbnb inquiries. (That’s something I miss about teaching, when I was on vacation people didn’t bother me). But if I snooze it I’m sure I’d take a big hit money wise because of the bookings I’d miss out on.