Becoming Vacation Rental Hosts: A Story About Lemons

Photo Cred: Bottle Rocket Photography

Hello and Welcome to the Rosa Lake Lodge Blog! 

We are so glad you have decided to join us on our journey to becoming premier vacation rental hosts! - Well that’s our goal anyways! Have we ever done this before? No. Do we know what we’re doing? No. Are we going to give it a whirl and let you know what’s working and what’s not? Absolutely! We are finally launching our website (and blog) and going all in on this whole vacation rental host thing! Buckle up because this is going to be one hell of a ride!

If you would have asked me 5 years ago if I thought we would be owners of a vacation rental, my answer would have been NO. We had just gotten married, I was working as a nurse in the hospital setting and my husband was running his business in the event industry. We were happy and fulfilled chasing our individual dreams. 

<Insert Bomb Drop>

Then 2020 happened - Let’s not even go there… And just when we thought life couldn’t get more complicated, my father-in-law passed away unexpectedly. Rosa Lake Lodge was his home, his dream. It was never suppose to be ours - especially not like this. We didn’t want it… so much so we even tried to sell it. 

So how did we end up here? A friend of our was telling us about his family’s cabin and how it did quite well as a vacation rental and that we should try it out. HAHAHA - Jokes on us. Did I mention we had already fixed it up to sell and gotten rid of almost everything in the cabin? Seriously… it was empty. Don’t believe me? I still have the listing photos to prove it. We were sleeping on a mattress on the floor of the bedroom and that was the only real furniture left. If we were going to do it… we had to start from scratch. But how?

Well after about a million trips to IKEA and Costco and figuring out how to become a host on AirBNB and VRBO - HERE WE ARE! Creating Rosa Lake Lodge has been a labor of love, grief, and everything in between. This is going to sound cheesy, but this new path is starting to feel more and more like destiny. It’s a route we didn’t foresee ourselves taking and despite every opportunity of trying to go the opposite direction…

HERE WE ARE!

Sometimes when life hands you lemons… You have no choice but to make lemonade. The best part about it is that you get to learn how to make the best lemonade. It may take a couple tries to get the recipe right, but in the end it will be worth it. I have a feeling one day we will look back at this lemon and think WOW - that was the best lemon we were ever given.

So what can you expect to see here? Helpful tips of things that have worked well for us so far, different ideas we are implementing, and all the mistakes we make along the way so hopefully you can avoid them when your time comes! There are many different paths you can take to become a premier AirBNB / VRBO host. I can’t promise ours will be the best way - but I can promise you that watching our different recipes come together will be entertaining.

If you are thinking about starting your AirBNB business today CLICK HERE! This link will take you straight to AirBNB so you can see how much you could be making with your property based on your location as an AirBNB owner. We appreciate you using our referral link. :)

Thank you for being here and supporting us. We cannot wait to share this adventure with you!

Cheers and Happy Trails,

Rosa Lake Lodge