Transylvania Airbnb

I don’t say don’t visit these famous places that you’ve always had a hankering to see – Dracula’s Castle and Poe’s House of Usher and what not – I’m just saying read the reviews! That’s why the fine people at Airbnb and VRBO and booking.com include public reviews written by previous travelers, presuming they survived.

It is only prudent to put a finger on the pulse, if they still have one, of people who have stayed at the same location and enjoyed the lodging.

The ability to get live feedback, again, if they survived, is one of the great features of the ‘gig economy’ and should enrich your travel experience.

Likewise, when you have completed your stay it would be entirely appropriate to leave a review for the travelers that follow you.

Most companies have well-defined guidelines to shape the content of their reviews, but in general you can get the most of the process by being honest and being kind.

This lets future tourists get the lay of the land before the massive iron door closes behind them, so to speak, and gives the host feedback on what little things here and there could be improved upon.

Do not make your comment sections a litany of complaints! What could be drearier to read, and besides could result in the host’s evil henchman/demonic entities, many of whom have that whole ‘I guess someone has stolen my soul’ thing going on, to track you down to the ends of the earth and then pierce you through the skull with a hot spike.

“Nice view!” you might write of Dracula’s castle for instance, “looking out through the narrow battlement openings of this stately lodging on a weekday morning with a cup of coffee in my hand, I admire the way the castle is on the very edge of a terrific precipice and the fact that a stone falling from the window would fall a thousand feet without touching anything! As far as the eye can reach is a sea of green tree tops, with occasionally a deep rift where there is a chasm. Here and there are silver threads where the rivers wind in deep gorges through the forests, with the castle rising above like a living looming presence and think to myself, ‘now this beats the office on a Monday morning all to heck!”

And just leave it at that, I say anyway.

Notice that there’s no mention here of your host turning into some kind of monstrous nocturnal creature crawling up the side of the castle, no reference to the other guests at the place like that one fellow a few floors below who is moving the needle on protein snacks by munching on insects to get him through the slow hours of the afternoon when it is too late for lunch and way to early for a full supper, nothing about the three sisters or whoever they are who have wandered into your room somehow looking for their own lodging, drunk probably, nothing, nothing at all, about an evil miasmic presence that threatens your very sanity…no, just the facts, ma’am, as the old TV show used to have it.

Coffee, sunrises, the occasional reference to colorful local superstitions, and then just put your pen down and walk away.

No one wants your hot take on current politics, where you stand on religion, what your daily workout is, how your company back home is keeping you down more than anything instead of lifting you up.

Coffee, the view, the setting.

A positive rating of four out of five ought to keep those demonic entities right there in Transylvania where they belong.

I don’t think I’d dip down to three or even three-and-a-half. Why chance it?

Likewise, if you have spent a night in the forests of Furthest Germania at yet another castle – what is it with you and castles, my friend! – you may be tempted to describe it as a place of misery and despair, whose cold gray stones suggest an owner of sometimes violent temper, with passions vehement. Agony, torment, isolation, desolation seem to seep out of the very foundations.

Look.

Put yourself in Dr. Frankenstein’s shoes, the proprietor.

Is this the way you want to be talked about?

There are any number of things that unkind observers could note about you, my friend, not to mention what they could say about your house. Let’s just reflect for a moment on that guttering on the east side that has been pulling away from the house like it was magnetically repelled by it since that storm, ummm four years ago now.

Do you want that kind of thing showing up in a review?

Of course not.

Every home has its own character, including in this case a laboratory of sorts at the top of the castle where the type of experiments that might occur only to a tortured soul in the depths of a fever dream might take place.

Great!

I mean, the man has a hobby.

Is it any better or worse than some of the things your friends are getting up to on your very street? Fred Chamberlain back home thinks he is actually home-brewing a craft beer in his basement.

It might work better, you told Chris Billings as you both left his house that night, Fred’s house I mean, it might work better as a driveway sealant that you’d apply with a push broom than as a craft beer.

But you would never leave any kind of public record of such a remark, right?

Like I said, be straightforward and be kind.

Otherwise you might find an otherworldly beast put together, like some cars on the demolition derby circuit assembled from pieces of any number of other cars, or in this case, from any number of executed criminals and autopsy specimens, tracking you down in the Arctic wastes to bring about your eventual and total doom.

Four out of five I say.

“Lovely grounds, with many a deep philosophical discussion around the blazing hearth with the host. Recommended!”

Like I say, I’d just keep all of these ratings at four out of five.

Well, and the same goes for wherever you land on your journeys.

Avoid the words ‘pesthole’ or ‘lair,’ as you’re scribbling your comments on your way out the door; there’s just not a lot of good connotations with those words. Same with House of the Dead, Land of Dread, Forsaken Manor, Drear Estates, and the like.

Same with over-attention to the specifics of the decor. There’s a pit and a pendulum down the basement? There’s evidence of ancient enemies being walled up in the catacombs below the foundation?

What’s that have to do with the quality of your stay?

Isn’t that what we’re talking about here? Stick to the subject is all I’m saying.

Again, if you can’t say something nice, just leave it. No one is so thrilled to get your big opinions on these things. A cheery goodbye in the morning, a friendly wave, and then you’re off to your next destination.

And like I say, review the comments of previous visitors. They’re in the same spot as you, no one wants to be torn limb from limb by evil flying monkeys for leaving an injudicious review, but there are still ways to get the point across. Look for the telling clue. If the little lady says, “Love the accessorizing in the guest room, some might say that the blood weeping from the walls at midnight is ‘over the top’ but I liked it! I really liked it!” well, then you suspect there’s a smidge of concern underneath all that enthusiasm.

Same with the isolated lighthouse on that unforgiving rocky outcropping of land, where in the narrow stone stairway some ancient crime gets reenacted over and over and plummeting out the window this one gal goes night after night while this roughish fellow from the village stands in despair and wonders what he has done.

The husband might write, ‘love the entertainment! It’s a bit like being part of a murder mystery game night! Night after night! After night!’

Well, being part of a murder mystery may not be your cup of tea, some of us would rather just rather sit and read a book if you want to know the truth. Know what type of person you are, I suppose that is my best advice, and let your instincts guide you.  

I don’t like these bossy travel writers who more or less tell you what to do, but I will go so far as to say avoid any place that has the adjective Dante-esque or Kafka-esque attached to it. They just never seem to be such great places. ‘Local cannibals’ is a personal turnoff for me, same with ‘human sacrifice,’ and ‘rivers of blood.’ But maybe that’s just me.

Follow these simple guidelines and I think it will enhance your travel experience.

Remember, four out of five is the rule. Better to be generous in these estimates than to find yourself at the wrong end, like I say, of a glowing hot spike held by some sort of local ghoul ready to pin your head to the earth.