The Search for Authentic Travel Has Become a Problem for Actual Places

Airbnb's September 30 update announced travel recommendations from personal connections. In Brindle, a neighborhood recommended almost entirely by people who would rather it weren't, the question is how much actual life a visitor should be expected to encounter.

Helen Voss chose a room above the bakery because she wanted to wake somewhere that had not been arranged for her. At 5:40 on her first morning, a bread delivery woke her.

She praised the street's character in her review and suggested moving commercial activity elsewhere.

The destination office had received several such helpful observations. Visitors admired the weathered doors but found them difficult to photograph when people were going in and out. Washing lines were popular, although bath towels tended to photograph as bath towels. Travelers looking for somewhere the locals ate often arrived to find that the locals were eating there.

“We're listening,” said destination manager Mara Wren. “People come for an encounter with ordinary life. We can't leave that to chance.”

The first measures were modest. Bread would be delivered after visitors wished to wake and before they wished to take breakfast, an interval the bakery was invited to identify. Residents could apply for a grant to replace brightly colored clothes pegs. Anyone putting out rubbish during the morning photography period was asked to carry it as though returning from the market.

Tomas Reed, whose shoe-repair shop appeared in the neighborhood's most frequently saved photograph, was asked to leave his shutters half open throughout the afternoon. The image suggested a proprietor who had stepped away for a moment. In practice he worked behind them, reaching under the lower edge to receive shoes.

“The half-open shutters are what people recognize,” Wren said. “It would be a shame to lose that.”

Reed had always taken his lunch outside on a wooden chair. When the chair broke, he bought a plastic one with a slightly curved back. The office offered to reimburse him if he kept it indoors. A carpenter was commissioned to reproduce the original, including the area where one spindle had pressed into his spine.

He was eating a packaged sandwich when a visitor asked what the residents usually had for lunch.

By spring, the office had identified a more serious difficulty. Daily life occurred unevenly. Some streets were full of people with things to do; others contained nobody except visitors disappointed by the absence of people with things to do.

A rota brought consistency. At 11:15 a resident crossed the square carrying provisions. At 12:30 two neighbors greeted each other with the unhurried warmth for which Brindle was becoming known. At 3:10 a shopkeeper emerged to consider the weather.

Wren stressed that nobody was required to act. The Thursday rehearsal simply gave people confidence in being themselves where the light was best.

Residents who already knew each other were encouraged to maintain those relationships, though the office reserved the right to make introductions for visual balance. A disagreement about a borrowed ladder tested well and was extended through August. The ladder's owner bought another ladder.

Demand soon required timed admission. Visitors could reserve a spontaneous encounter or, for a supplement, one that appeared accidental to both parties. Residents used the same system when they wanted to cross the square for other reasons.

Reed missed the booking window on a Monday and could not collect a customer's shoes from his supplier. He proposed going around the back. The back was reserved for people who preferred to get away from the obvious route.

The shoes remained where they were for three days, during which they acquired a short description and an excellent rating.

Brindle's remaining weakness was its distance from the airport. It took nearly three hours to reach a place known for not watching the clock. For visitors staying a weekend, the lack of hurry was becoming impractical.

The destination office commissioned a pilot neighborhood beside the departure gates. It contained the bakery frontage, Reed's half-open shutters and a rack of postcards showing the lane behind them. The whole place could be discovered between security and the currency exchange.

Reviews improved. Nobody complained about delivery vans. The residents were there whenever people arrived. Reed worked alternate shifts at the shoe-shop facade, where repairs had been discontinued because the machine obscured boarding announcements. He passed visitors their purchases beneath the shutter: small leather key rings, each stamped with a door that no longer opened.

The original neighborhood closed to visitors while the office studied how best to preserve it. Several remaining residents began commuting to the airport. There was talk of converting their homes into accommodation for staff at the gift shop, which was now trading as Brindle.

Voss returned and found the place much as she remembered it, with the awkward parts removed. She bought a photograph of the old square. The wooden chair was visible in a corner.

Reed's supplier sent the shoes to his new workplace. They arrived in a cardboard box, addressed to the man rather than the destination. Nobody at the gift shop knew where to put an object that had already been paid for and was waiting for somebody who lived there.

The box was sent to lost property. Reed could collect it after his shift, through arrivals.

Factual-versus-fiction note: The linked Airbnb announcement is real. Brindle, its people, quotations, visitor practices and redevelopment are invented. None of the fictional policies is attributed to Airbnb.

Photo: © Jorge Royan. Venice - Street scene - 4786.jpg, via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0. Web-sized rendition; image licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

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