Airbnb neighborhood photo essays (Boston, Cambridge: apartments, to rent, hotel)

[boulevardofdef]

I don't know if anyone here is as heavily into city porn as I am, but I was embarrassingly excited today when I discovered that Airbnb has updated its Neighborhoods section. If you're unfamiliar with Airbnb, it's a hugely popular service that lets people rent out space in their apartments and houses to short-term visitors, like a hotel. (I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that in some places, it's illegal -- I don't know about Boston.)

A while back, Airbnb realized that in large cities, people looking for lodging didn't really have a lot to go on when it came to neighborhoods -- they could see that a certain place was in, say, Jamaica Plain, but they didn't know what that meant. So a few months ago, they launched Neighborhoods, a series of professional photo essays profiling certain neighborhoods in major destination cities. As someone who actively seeks out photos of cities on a daily basis, I can say these are some of the best selections I've ever seen. They make these cities seem absolutely great.

At launch, the cities profiled were Berlin, London, New York, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, San Francisco and Washington, DC. Today's update added Rome, Venice, Austin and -- the reason I'm here, of course -- Boston.

I really got lost in the Boston galleries today, and I was reminded why I fell in love with the city when I visited back in June and resolved to relocate to the area. They're so good that I felt like I had to share them, and so here they are:

https://www.airbnb.com/locations/boston

[emathias]

I'm using Airbnb to stay in Cambridge right now, while also using Airbnb to rent out my place in Chicago. I think it's pretty awesome.