The Article below was published in Vol. 136, Issue 8 of the Lake Forest College Stentor on April 30, 2021.
By Emma Baumgartel ’21
Staff Writer
Want to stay in a treehouse or train car? Check out these unique Airbnbs in Illinois.
Ever slept in a treehouse complete with Wi-Fi, a refrigerator, and a hot tub? In Schaumburg, Illinois, you can relax in a stay with all of these amenities, all while 15 feet up in the air. In Antioch, Illinois, you can lounge on the deck of a houseboat on sunny Petite Lake. In central Illinois, revisit the year 1905 in a refurbished train car from pre-WWI.
In the last few years, more and more of these alternative accommodations, dubbed “unique stays,” have been appearing on budget-hospitality site Airbnb.com, as more guests seek unusual properties in which to rent. According to a November article published on Airbnb’s website, more than two times as many people searched for unique stays in 2020 compared to 2018.
With Airbnb’s “unique stay” filters, users can choose to select these types of non-traditional properties, searching for anything from a lighthouse to a dome to even an igloo.
The Midwest is no exception to this exploding Airbnb trend. As of April, there are 184 unique-stay Airbnbs listed in Illinois alone.
One particularly eye-catching stay, called “Enchanted Garden Treehouse” on the site, is located in the northwest Chicago suburb of Schaumburg. Travelers can stay in a fully-renovated treehouse while gazing down at a flower garden and a rushing waterfall.
In Antioch—a Lake County town on the Chain O’Lakes—travelers can stay in a petite houseboat on a sunny waterfront, where they can paddleboard by day and listen to the lapping waves at night. Guests can also make use of the rooftop deck, complete with an outdoor fireplace.
In far west suburban Plano, Illinois, travelers can stay in a Pullman train car, originally built in 1905 and updated for guests to stay in 2016. Amy Price, daughter of the stay’s owners and manager of the property, explains, “The place is definitely unique…it served as ‘Air Force One’ for Presidents Harding and Wilson.”
The train car, indeed, housed the two presidents as they toured the country while in office. Price also explains how it’s a wonderful place to relax and “look out the window into the ravine at the beautiful slow-moving Big Rock Creek,” perhaps while imagining the train car in motion.
Price noticed a surprising increase in bookings last fall when things “usually die down.” This increase in bookings was most likely due to the state-wide travel restrictions that were occurring at the time.
“People from Chicago and the suburbs wanted to get away but couldn’t leave the state, so they looked for unique places to visit in Illinois,” says Price.
It’s unclear why unique stays, in general, have suddenly grown in attraction over the last few years, but social media accounts run by people who promote such eye-catching stays may serve as an explanation.
Real-estate photographer Ethan Abitz’s Instagram account @ethanabitz, features photos of eye-catching and aesthetically pleasing stays, such as A-frame tiny homes and treehouses, and has grown his account to over 34,000 followers. “I get a lot of my cabin photography business through Instagram,” says Abitz. “It’s crazy how many people support what I’m doing.”
Accounts on other social media apps, such as TikTok, promote similar content for viewers who are wanderlust-driven, many accounts featuring short video walk-throughs of mountain cabins or glass dome retreats.
In terms of tourism trends, there seems to be a growing interest to have more novel, unusual tourism experiences. Tourism researchers Ondrej Mitas and Marcel Bastiaansen reference in their article “Novelty: A Mechanism Of Tourists’ Enjoyment,” published in Annals of Tourism Research, that novelty, or newer tourism experiences, mediates positive emotions during tourism experiences. Travelers may be looking to maximize their enjoyment of their stays by turning to more novel and exciting stay options, such as unique Airbnbs.
Airbnb’s price points are typically on the lower side than traditional hotel stays. It’s common to find stays for less than $100 to even $30 a night, while unique stays usually go for $50-180 per night. These low price points seem to attract younger stay-seekers, with 36 percent of Airbnb users in the 25-32 age range.
Lake Forest College students and alumni seem to have a positive view of Airbnb. Recent graduate Ellerese Topacio ’20 describes her experience with Airbnb as “exceptional and wholesome,” because of “its semblance to a genuine homestay.” Topacio says she would enjoy sleeping in a nicely lit treehouse, although she’s not yet rented one.
While in-state Airbnbs may have seen an increase in bookings this year, Airbnb, as a whole, saw a large decrease in business and had to lay off 25 percent of their employees last May. This dip might be short-lived. International trade consultant and Ernest A. Johnson Professor of Economics at Lake Forest College Robert Baade predicts a high-powered recovery of the economy due to the growing number of people getting vaccinated.
This recovery will have positive implications for Airbnb, Baade explains. Regarding hotel space, people may potentially find themselves “crowded out of the hotel market and turn towards Airbnb, even if they haven’t used Airbnb before,” Baade adds.
With Midwesterners hungry to get out of their hometowns and the increased desire for more valuable experiences, it may be of no surprise that Airbnb’s ‘unique stays’ see a rise in popularity in the coming months.
