Flower from my @lyft driver and chocolate from my @airbnb host. Feeling the love from the sharing economy
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Speaking at Microsoft’s startup incubator
Looking forward to speaking on a panel at Microsoft BizSpark tonight in Mountain View about Community Development at Airbnb!
Excited to join the conversation about community and design alongside Klout, Babelverse, Learn Capital and Sumazi.
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#airbnb
#community
#bzlabs
#bizspark
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Emerged from the jungle relatively unscathed.
Counting 4 monkey bites and 70+ mosquito bites as a win.
Plus one libre soul.
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When I was last in Peru two years ago, I scaled Macchu Picchu and found myself deep in the jungle on a journey of self-discovery.
Winding my way back there today to let the jungle work its magic.
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It takes the cool morning mist on the island to blow out the city in my heart.
I spend all year forgetting who I am until I can get the magic to weave myself back together again. Almost every summer I have sat in the same place waiting for the island to put me back together. And it does, everytime.
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Travel soul mates
In 2002, face in hands and sobbing uncontrollably, I was approached by a Canadian boy (as was evidenced by a small flag on his backpack) in the Frankfurt am Main Airport. “Are you okay? Do you need help?” he asked. I explained that I was en route to Madrid as part of a student exchange program and had made a huge mistake. My then boyfriend had slipped a handheld recording device into my carry on. The voice on the tape blurted “I love you”.
Two years later I returned to Spain to visit my friends. After a day of walking around the Alhambra and feasting on tapas, we danced to the songs of musicians we had stumbled across in a square. The figure walking towards me was blurry but I recognised his voice. “The airport in Germany!” he announced. We talked about coincidences and parted ways.
In 2006, I spent 5 months traveling through India. Arms out, spinning on the white marble of the Taj Mahal, I was interrupted by him again. “You’re kidding, right?” he said. We spoke, this time more awkwardly, about the size of the world and again parted.
Two years later, I was saying my goodbyes in Toronto. I would be moving to Berlin the following week and we had a table in the back of Ted’s Bar on College Street. Moving through the crowd, arms above head, I held a bottle and two glasses in each hand. “Soul mate! You’re my soulmate!” he bellowed from across the room. That night I learnt that he was a photographer and that we had several friends in common. When it was time to leave I shouted “Brazil 2010!” in his direction and winked once before exiting. I never made it to Brazil but have heard through the grapevine that his photos of Rio are unbelievable.
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My kind of rhyme: flights to Peru for $392
LAX-Lima in October on Kayak - search flex dates for best options
#peru
#cheap flights
Street art tour in Copenhagen by bike showcases local art by internationally renowned street artists
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why things are the way they are
…and why I am the way I am. Best friends/old college roommates tend to have that effect on you. Jenna travels the world for Airbnb. Between the two of us, I think it is apparent that you can have it all.
Indeed I do wake up some days not quite sure of where I am. The first time I met one of the Airbnb founders, he asked me how lucky I considered myself on a scale of 1-10.
I blurted out “10 plus!” without hesitating. I would be at a 10 because I have clothes on my back and enough food to eat. I’ve been incredibly lucky to have traveled to many places in far-flung corners of the globe and am acutely aware of how fortunate we are with our First World problems - we who complain about iPhone battery life and wonky wifi connections.
I feel lucky to work for a company that inspires me and is changing the way people travel on a global scale. In the year since I answered that question, I’ve been to Honduras, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, France, UK, Spain, Italy, Denmark, and New Zealand.
Two days ago I escaped a downpour in Copenhagen for the sweltering summer heat of Barcelona. Now that it’s a rainy Sunday in Barcelona, I just might chase the sun again and hop a train to Montserrat for the afternoon.
It’s quite the life, this whole doing-what-you-love thing. That lucky scale? I’m off the chart.





