Accommodation Roulette

Issue #43 · Will this pillow send me to the chiropractor?

December 20, 2024: Greetings from Puerto Escondido, where the holiday crowds have begun to pour in, just in time to celebrate the town’s shiny new designation as one of Airbnb’s Top Trending Destinations for 2025.

Ughhh. Maybe we should start calling it Puerto not-so-Escondido?

Now, I’m painfully aware that my navy blue passport and I have contributed to the rapid, unsustainable growth that’s taken place here over the past few years — but as someone who longs to protect the spirit of this formerly sleepy surf town, the sight of international chain restaurants putting up 'Coming Soon!' signs in La Punta still stings.

Despite all of the recent development and expansion, Puerto remains a special place. There’s an intangible yet undeniable magnetism here that lures many people in (myself included, as it’s been my winter home for the past five years). If you’re curious what life here is like, I posted a photo dump on Instagram the other night — but please keep in mind that as social media often goes, these cherry-picked moments leave out much of the messy reality.

I feel obligated to add that among the spectacular sunsets and lounge-chair coconuts are a slew of lowlights that never quite seem to make the photo carousel: the constant power outages, the 4am rooster wake up calls, the mosquito bites that carry the risk of Dengue Fever, and the fact that last Tuesday, I spent the entire night vomiting my brains out (Food poisoning? Bad water? Wait, was that Dengue?!)

Living here means you must roll with the punches that this paradise often throws — a skill I’ve honed through many years of sacrificing personal comforts for the sake of ticking things off my bucket list. In fact, dealing with fowl-mouthed neighbors¹ feels like a walk in the park compared to some of the other chaotic moments I’ve faced during my travels.

In the wise words of my friend Sharon, who has had a front row seat to countless such moments, “everyone loves a good disaster story.” So in the spirit of keeping things real (and because I’ve somehow accumulated an unfortunate amount of material for this topic), I thought I’d share some of my best worst travel mishaps:

• Last summer while in Rome, Sharon and I locked ourselves out of our Airbnb (our fault!) and didn’t realize it until 3:30am (still our fault!) — the owner surprisingly came to our rescue, but after thirty minutes of failed attempts with the spare key, she stormed off in a fit of stereotypical Italian hand gestures, never to return (kind of not our fault!) It was a weekend during peak tourist season, and at that hour, the only option for sleep was an overpriced bunk bed in a 20-person hostel dorm across town.

• Ignoring the scorpions, tarantulas and snakes for a moment (hey, that’s just classic Central American charm), the oceanfront villa that a group of friends and I rented for a month in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua was pretty incredible. Sunset views, an infinity pool, a private chef on call — the works! Well, that was until the power went out, the faulty generator began filling the villa with fumes, and we all almost died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Hey, does anyone else have an excruciating headache?

• This past summer, I decided to switch things up and stay in a different neighborhood of Valencia — one closer to the beach, as I was eager to soak in more of the Spanish sun. While making coffee on the very first morning, a mouse darted across the kitchen floor. And he wasn’t alone — I’d soon discover that the entire building was infested. Just like that, I was packing up yet again, scrambling to find a pricey, last-minute place to stay as my carefully laid plans for the next three months fell apart.

• After clocking about 20k steps around the Acropolis in Athens a few years back, my ex-boyfriend and I returned to our apartment to relax. I decided to do some light stretching on my yoga mat in the kitchen, when mid-Pigeon Pose, I began to hear the faint trickle of water from under the sink. Hmmmm, that’s weird, nobody’s in the bathro—BANG!! A shoddy pipe suddenly exploded, and a flood of scalding hot water began filling the kitchen. We scrambled to figure out how to shut off the valve in this unfamiliar apartment while burning ourselves in the process. Fortunately, we happened to be home when the pipe decided to give way — a massive stroke of luck given that both of our passports were sitting in a backpack on the floor just a few feet away. But now that I think about it, maybe we would have been better off with ruined passports? Because just a few days later, we boarded another flight and my ultimate travel nightmare became a reality…

• Bedbugs. Yep, bedbugs. And no, we weren’t slumming it in some sketchy guesthouse, we were staying in a fancy, highly-rated Airbnb that seemed immaculate at first glance. We didn’t even notice until the third day when the bites began to appear. And GOD DAMN do those bites hurt. The psychological toll was even worse — for the next three months, I couldn’t sleep through the night due to a phantom feeling that something was crawling on me, and every time I saw an ant, I’d spiral into a full-blown panic attack that they were back. I’m not exaggerating here — it’s taken me over two years to just be able to write about this.

Needless to say, these “travel hiccups” (putting it lightly) are a big reason why I’ve essentially stopped nomading this past year, and why I finally plan to put down roots in Spain in 2025.

Still, I’d be lying if I said that — uninvited critters and property maintenance fiascos aside — I didn’t sometimes worry about whether I’m really ready to give up the freedom of this incredible lifestyle. I still haven’t been to South Africa or Argentina or Australia or anywhere in Southeast Asia. Instead of subjecting myself to expensive, complicated visa paperwork and the limitations that come with owning a doormat, why not just escape to Chiang Mai² this summer when I inevitably run out of Schengen days? Why buy a couch when I could buy a plane ticket to Peru? How could I walk away from my annual love affair with Puerto Escondido?

Recounting all of these horror stories serves as a good reminder that (1.) no, bucket list destinations are of course not always what they’re cracked up to be regardless of what Airbnb thinks, and that (2.) yes, I am ready for a less frustrating life. There’s no doubt that these past few years have been unforgettable, but the wanderlust pendulum has begun to swing back, and I’m finally ready for four walls that I can call my own again — I just hope that my next spin of the accommodation roulette wheel proves to be a winner.

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Recommended related posts:

• To All of the Places I Will Never Visit: More likely than not, a portion of our bucket lists will remain untouched forever — and that's okay.

• Follow Me to Weird Places: Why you should leave some room in your next trip’s itinerary for a bit of spontaneity.

• On Passport Privilege: Sometimes it seems that I simply jet-off to whatever corner of the world my little heart desires, so this is a reminder that I don’t take that privilege lightly.

PS: I’d love to hear what you thought about this issue. Email me directly at hello@emilyannhill.com and I pinky promise I’ll reply back.

1. I would just like to emphasize how good of a pun this is. It’s SO good. This footnote is literally just to make sure you don’t miss it. Also, did you know that in Mexico, instead of “cock-a-doodle-doo” roosters say “kikiríki”? Adorable.

2. My brother and his wife left for their honeymoon to Thailand last night and OKAY FINE, maybe this is me projecting my jealousy a bit.