This post is extempore and inspired by our recent stay in Vienne. Since 2013 we’ve almost exclusively stayed at Airbnb accommodations during our travels, and we’ve done it in many countries: Finland, France, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Malta, Montenegro, Netherlands, Romania, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and UK. While we have mainly good experiences, and the balance is still on the positive, recently we have had quite a few disappointments.

It has never been about the host or practical arrangements, but always about the cleanliness of the apartment. While the place in London was an absolute horror, with the exception apartments in ski resorts (which are managed by real estate agents, not by private individuals) and a couple of apartments in Lyon (one of which was rented out by a Japanese woman), all places we’ve stayed in France have had from mild to severe issues with cleanliness.And it takes some of the enjoyment out of the stay when we need to wash the dishes or the washing machine before using them.

The reason may be the one Tomi read about in a piece written by a Finnish columnist residing in France that the French people simply abhor cleaning or find it not important, since there are so much better things to do in life. So they simply do not clean their homes. Or the reason may be as well that because they rent out places they don’t themselves live in, they trust the guests to clean after themselves, which obviously not everyone does. But this would apply hosts in other countries, too, since very few of our hosts have actually lived in the apartment they rent through Airbnb.

To finish on a positive note, not so surprisingly the cleanest Airbnb placed we’ve stayed at have been in Finland, but also in former Yugoslavian countries Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia. Maybe they just represent the level of cleanliness we have been used to?