For years now, guests have told their family and friends about their great, and not-so-great, experiences when they stayed in an Airbnb. But (surprise!) they didn't stay in an Airbnb!
Guests have stayed in an apartment or home that is owned or managed by a small business, or more often, an individual or family. Increasingly, more and more of these properties are run by professional hosts, including Lindsborg Vacation Rentals. While hosts do all the work, Airbnb receives all the credit.
So what is Airbnb then?
Think of it as a huge store with millions of shelves. Each shelf has hundreds of apartments and homes that guests can shop for. When guests book an apartment or home on Airbnb, they are, as previously stated, actually staying with an individual, family or small business. They are not staying with Airbnb.
To pay for its website and service, Airbnb charges every host 15% of what guests pay: the total of each nights stay, plus any other fees such as for cleaning or pets.
What do professional hosts do about this?
Professional hosts, including Lindsborg Vacation Rentals, increase their rates on Airbnb by 15%. By doing this, the professional hosts receive the same net income from guests who book their stay through Airbnb and from guests who book their stay through the hosts' own website. Professional hosts want to provide the same top-notch experience for all of our guests.
When guests book through the hosts' website, guests save 15%! The world-wide community of professional hosts embraces #bookdirect.
How Can a Guest Find Out If an Airbnb Property is
Owned by a Professional Host?
If you're curious, please send an email to sw3d3guy105@gmail.com. If I receive a sufficient number of requests, I'll send out the "secrets" early in 2021.
Specital Rates: Winter Break 2021
All of our short-term vacation rental properties have special rates from January 3 through March 25. Valentines Day, Super Bowl, March Madness (maybe) will be held during this early winter time. Please check with the Kansas Department of Health and Education on COVID-19. And, as always, if you're not feeling well, please stay home.
Makers Mark is a "straight bourbon whisky" out of Kentucky that asked communities to nominate themselves for $100,000 worth of Christmas lights, window displays and more. Although Lindsborg was vetted for this contest, Ripley (believe it or not) in Tennessee won the honor.
For your viewing pleasure, here are some pictures of downtown Lindsborg this holiday season:
For those of you who have read through this entire newsletter, please send your email address to sw3d3guy105@gmail.com
so that Jim Prugh, the owner of Lindsborg Vacation Rentals
can send $10 to your email address through Paypal.
Please send by Friday, December 4, 2020.
God Jul! (Swedish for Merry Christmas)
Many shoppers worldwide are introduced to Sweden by
shopping at IKEA, which can be an all-day excursion.
Most shoppers treat themselves to a plate of
Swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes and lingonberries on the side.
Here's a humorous video that rings true for
everyone who has shopped at IKEA.
Simply click on the picture or here.
En-yoy! (Swedes pronounce a "j" like a "y".)
Making Meals in my Vacation Rental: What I Learned
Cooking Dinner in
My Vacation Rental
What I learned about making dinner
when staying in my vacation rental
(It's difficult to find a nice picture of meatloaf!)
Earlier this month, we traveled to one of my vacation rentals. The dining options are still limited by COVID-19, so after debating our options, we elected something simple: meatloaf with mashed potatoes and a vegetable.
Two positive benefits: the local grocery store, White's Foodliner had everything we needed. Even better, the vacation rental's kitchen had everything we needed to prepare the entire dinner.
Here's the dinner recipe (with some side hints)
starting with the ingredients:
1 1/2 pounds of ground beef (we opted for ground sirloin)
1 egg (eggs purchased by the dozen, so scramble them for breakfast)
1 onion - chopped (that's a lot of onion, so use half an onion instead)
1 cup milk (buy some cookies to dunk) 1 cup dried bread crumbs (avoid Italian crumbs, unless you'd like that)
salt and pepper to taste (available in the vacation rental's kitchen)
1/3 cup ketchup (smear this over the top of the meatloaf)
Preheat oven to 350F. Combine all of the ingredients well (bowls for mixing were found), adding ketchup over the top. Our kitchen included a large cookie sheet that was lined with aluminum foil, spraying cooking spray to keep meatloaf from sticking. Bake for 1 hour.
Two russet potatoes were enough. The kitchen has a peeler, a knife, a masher and a pot big enough to peel, cut and boil the potatoes. The potatoes were ready for mashing in about 20 minutes. A splash of milk and some butter were added, plus salt and pepper to taste.
The grocery store offered pre-packaged asparagus that had been lightly coated in olive oil with salt and pepper plus a half-lemon to squeeze its juice onto the asparagus. These were cooked in the microwave using a glass container with a lid. Prepackaged salads are available too.
The vacation rental had a knife to slice the meatloaf, a large spoon to serve the mashed potatoes and tongs to serve the asparagus. Dinner was served on the plates (with placemats) and very nice tableware and glasses for water (or any other beverage).
With advanced planning for our guests, the vacation rental's kitchen had everything needed. But it took a little while to search and learn where to find what was needed to prepare this meal. Working in a different kitchen can be a bit frustrating, but everything needed was found soon enough.
Stay with us anytime for any reason!
Any of our properties can be short-term (for vacations or visiting family) or long-term (usually work related, especially for manufacturers in Salina and McPherson).
If you're looking for a new pair of shoes
or just trying to order a cup of coffee,
there are so many choices!
I just signed up for Medicare
My "age-odometer" turned over to 65 recently. That means signing up for Medicare. Parts A & B certainly. Then do you sign up for Supplemental Coverage (Medigap) or Advantage Plan? Took a while, but I determined the difference.
Supplemental Coverage has Parts D, G, K, L, M, N and sometimes C and F. For Part G had 59 Medigap options. Medicare Part D for prescriptions has 26 different plans. Advantage Plans are "free" but have their own restrictions.
At Lindsborg Vacation Rentals, we offer choices too - they aren't just for vacations any more! Our guests can stay for a weekend, a week, a month or longer. Currently we have four properties with guests staying for well over a month. These guests are usually workers on temporary assignments.
Åkerhuset is now available for the digital nomads through Anyplace.com.
A digital nomad is anyone who can work anywhere for 30 days or longer
as long as there's great wireless Internet service. Thanks to IdeaTek Telcom, we do! The tornado shelter at Åkerhuset also serves as another living area.
Here's a picture of the living area and kitchen in Vetehuset - Plantera. Most of our vacation rentals are furnished, fully-equipped studio apartments with onsite laundry.
Åkerhuset has five bedrooms, each of which can be leased separately for 30 days or longer. Digital nomads will share the kitchen, living areas and laundry - like a bed and breakfast (without breakfast).
Stay with us anytime for any reason!
Any of our properties can be short-term (for vacations or visiting family) or long-term (usually work related, especially for manufacturers in Salina and McPherson).
Owning vacation rentals is an adventure, with so much to learn just about every day!
One such lesson was that my newsletter could be quite a bit better. Some personal anecdotes, a little more information on Lindsborg and the surrounding area, and what's going on with our small vacation rental business.
Road Trip to National Parks
Recently my son and a couple of friends took a week-long road trip to visit National Parks (Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Glacier, Zion, Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde and Great Sand Dunes) and National Monuments (Craters of the Moon and Vermillion Cliffs). Many miles were covered, including a 15-hour marathon from northern Montana to southern Utah!
One of my son's skill sets is planning itineraries. He and his friends stayed in short-term rentals (sometimes called Airbnbs). One of their favorites was on the Navajo reservation in northern Arizona's Monument Valley.
What's new in Lindsborg
Around the beginning of the pandemic, two of our restaurants in downtown Lindsborg closed: Farley's (which is for sale, by the way) and The Swedish Crown, which is planned to open in the fall as "The Crown and Rye." Stay tuned!
Meanwhile Jalisco's, China and a couple others are open. Salina and McPherson have places for meals to-go. Vacation rentals have their own fully-equipped kitchen to make homemade meals away from home.
Just shop at Lindsborg's grocery store, Scott's Hometown, which has been purchased by White's Foodliner as of August 26th. They have big plans, so be sure to stop by for your essentials and, from what I hear, rotisserie chicken!
Stockholm Estates has broken ground on a new subdivision on the northeast corner of town. Four families plan to build their forever-homes and six more are being built on spec. A new childcare center will be constructed across the street next year
Back when the pandemic hit, Airbnb cancelled our guests' reservations and returned their money. We did the same for guests who booked through LindsborgVacationRentals.com. It was the right thing to do, under the circumstances.
Since we didn't have any guests, we took a close look at our operations and made several improvements. One of them was instituting the QCD Protocol which means Quarantine, Clean and Disinfect. After a guest leaves, the property sits quietly for at least 24 hours before the property is cleaned and disinfected.
Cleanliness is the new standard for vacation rentals, hotels, motels and B&Bs.
We've been extraordinarily busy the last couple of months, especially with guests from Kansas City and other larger cities booking a place to stay in a small town.
VRBO and "Fall into Fall"
In order to attract guests, we like to through "baited hooks into the hospitality waters" to see what bites. Our website is one hook; Airbnb is another.
We recently added our properties to VRBO (pronounced, "verb-oh" and owned by Expedia). Travelers to central Kansas looking for a chain motel room (yawn) might be tempted to try a short-term vacation rental. Our listings on VRBO are a little different in that they require guests to either purchase insurance or agree to a refundable damage deposit.
We'll see how this goes - nothing ventured, nothing gained, as they say.
Now that summer is almost over, the nightly rates for our vacation rentals have dropped for stays between September 8 and December 17. You're the first to know!
If you're looking for an escape, or know someone who needs one, please call or text 855-872-3487 or contact us at lindsborgvacationrentals@gmail.com.
Stenhuset (Swedish for
"the Stone House")
featured on Viega Voice
Stenhuset was demo'ed down to its four 20-inch thick stone walls before it was rebuilt into the magnificent vacation rental
that it is today. Three carved Bible verses in Old Swedish
from 1877 were preserved.
Instead of copper, PEX plastic plumbing was installed. PEX is manufactured in nearby McPherson.
Many small businesses (but not all) are welcoming visitors
Visit Lindsborg this summer
or this weekend,
but keep in mind that
it's not quite the same.
Lindsborg Vacation Rentals have welcomed
three couples and families this week alone
(individuals are always welcome too)
Visitors from out-of-state, a couple celebrating their anniversary and former guests have stayed with us. They appreciate our enhanced cleaning, called QCD Protocol, which gives peace-of-mind to our guests and our cleaning staff.
Most small businesses are open, but some are closed
Lindsborg's coffee shops and retail stores are open, but not every day. But small business owners, such as Hemslojd, are opening carefully. If a shop appears to be closed, simply call them and ask if they would be willing to open just for you. Lindsborg is a small town - it's who we are and what we do.
Recently a couple of art galleries closed permanently: Courtyard Gallery and Hands of Time.
But local museums are open. Enjoy original artwork at the Sandzen Gallery. Take a drive to Hutchinson to the Kansas Cosmosphere to see the largest collection of American and Russian space memorabilia outside of the Smithsonian, including the Apollo 13 capsule: Odyssey.
If you're looking to dine in a restaurant, please adjust your expectations. The Swedish Crown and Farley's are closed for now. But grab-and-go options are available at Blacksmith Coffee, The White Peacock, Ol' Stuga, Jalisco's, China, Subway and Pizza Hut. Yes, we know this isn't ideal. More options can be found in nearby Salina.
The properties at Lindsborg Vacation Rentals have their own kitchens, so guests can make their own meals: breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks - even a picnic at Coronado Heights or a local park. Be sure to stop by Scott's Hometown Foods for your supplies and Swedish delicacies.
At Lindsborg Vacation Rentals, our priority is to provide comfort, safety and peace-of-mind for our guests and professional cleaning staff. We have combined the best practices recommended by leaders in the vacation rental community to create our QCD Protocol.
Quarantine: After guests check out of a property, it will sit untouched for three full days. Clean: Our cleaning staff will perform their cleaning procedures, taking about 3 hours. Disinfect: Every surface the could have been touched by guests will be treated with a Lysol-equivalent disinfectant.
Please review the four-minute video below to learn more.
Holly Lofton, Lindsborg CVB, interviews Tisha Beckman, Property Manager about our new cleaning procedures. Many thanks for Jim Richardson, National Geographic photographer, for filming and editing. Enjoy his daily "Scotland Fix" on Instagram!
