Looking to stay in an Airbnb for the first time? Already an Airbnb regular but looking for better stays? I’m a huge Airbnb fan, and I’ve spent hours (probably months) working to get my dozens of stays exactly right. There’s no one way to guarantee a perfect booking every time, but here are some tips and questions to help you maximize your Airbnb searches.

Choose Your Location First

It can be tempting to scroll through Airbnb just to see what comes up, especially when Airbnb offers search options like “Amazing Pools” and “OMG!” But unless you’re traveling purely for the fun of staying somewhere unusual, it’s better to know where you want to go first. There are three reasons for this: (1) scrolling aimlessly through thousands of random properties is a huge time sink, (2) you probably already have some sense of where you want to be, and (3) the “amazing” and “OMG” offerings may not be all that spectacular (for example, “OMG” usually means “round”).

In order to do the very best job of choosing your location, first you’ll want to ask these questions:

1. Am I planning to stay somewhere rural, suburban, or urban?
2. If I prefer a suburban or an urban location, how will I get around? Will I have a car or a bike, or will I need access to public transportation?
3. What areas look most interesting, safe, and affordable?

Have a Sense of What You Want Before You Start Searching

Airbnb can be overwhelming. There are so many choices! So, before you go any further, think about these things:

• Do you want to be in your own place, or are you okay sharing an apartment or a home with someone else?
• Do you need multiple beds or bedrooms?
• Is there anything you can’t live without: wifi, a stove, wheelchair-accessible entry, air conditioning?
• Will you be traveling with children or pets?

It’s helpful to determine your must-haves and nice-to-haves before you begin.

Narrow Searches Based on Price

Once you’ve typed your location and dates into the Airbnb search bar, you’ll be given a huge list of options. There are lots of ways to differentiate among them, but price is the most obvious place to start. There are two important ways to control for pricing in your search. The first — and one we’ll explore further below — is by using filters. The filter button may look a bit different from this depending on your interface, but here’s what I get when I arbitrarily tell Airbnb that I want to visit Santiago, Chile, in August.

You’ll see that I’ve been given over 1,000 choices of places I might stay, which is an impossibly unwieldy number. But if I use the slider to set a narrow price window within the Filters feature, I get down to 236 options — still a lot, far more manageable.

The other important trick to use in finding exact prices is the Display Total Price button.

This button is your friend, because it allows you to see the total price including all of the pesky fees that almost always come with Airbnb rentals.

Use Filters

Filters aren’t just for price! They’re for all sorts of things, including: number of beds and bedrooms; pools and hot tubs; ceiling fans and fireplaces. Make robust use of the filters, and make sure to scroll through all of them.

There’s a filter for “Property Types” that appears pretty far down, which I like because it helps me know what I’m getting.

There’s also a filter for “Guest Favorites,” but I’m not entirely sure that I trust it, because it sometimes turns up places with less-than-stellar reviews.

A quick warning on the “number of beds” filter: hosts are allowed to list a sofa bed as a bed. So if you click that you want two beds, you’ll often end up with listings that have one real bed and one sofa bed. I find this truly irritating. Sometimes you can figure out the true sleeping options by looking at the “where you’ll sleep” part of the listing, and sometimes you can see what you’re getting in the photos, but I’ve occasionally had to reach out to the host just to be sure.

One very important filter is “Free Cancellation.” This is always worth choosing if you think you might need to change your plans for any reason — or if you just like to play it safe.

Narrow by Ratings

This is soooooo important! Airbnbs are rated on a scale of 1 to 5 on six factors — cleanliness, accuracy, check-in, communication, location, and value — with 5 being the highest. When you see each listing, you’ll find the averaged rating just to the right of the little star, followed by the number of people who’ve rated it.

So far, that’s pretty much like every product with a rating. But here’s the thing you need to know: nearly every Airbnb receives over a 4.0 rating. So here’s how to make use of the Airbnb rating: ignore the 4, take away the decimal point, and just pay attention to the two numbers that follow it. In other words, a 4.97 becomes a 97, and a 4.45 becomes a 45. Now the difference is stark: the 97 is an A+, and the 45 is pretty much failing.

As a general rule, I only recommend staying in places that have earned ratings of 4.8 and above (and I’m always looking for 4.9 and above). Some places have no ratings at all because they’re new listings, and I would only opt for those if you’re a real risk-taker.

Study the Photos

Not every Airbnb host is equally facile with a camera — plenty of places are much nicer than the pictures. On the other hand, photos can be misleading (a good photographer can make a very small room look larger, for example, or hide nearby neighbors). All of that said, in general, looking at each listing’s photos will give you a good sense of whether it is the kind of place you can see yourself staying. Make sure to look carefully at all of the photos; just one click will take you to a page with everything in a single spot.

When possible, look at the same space taken from multiple angles — and then cross-check what you’re seeing against the reviews.

Read the Reviews

Once I’ve narrowed my options to anywhere between ten and two top choices, I start reading the reviews — and the key here is to look for trends. I’m not so interested in the one person who didn’t like the organization of the silverware drawer, but I will start to take a closer look if four people say it’s tricky to get up the driveway or six people talk about the amazing friendliness of the owners. This means reading more than just the top few reviews; I try to read at least twenty reviews or more for each listing.

Study the Maps

This is another step worth taking once you’ve started to narrow down your options, especially if you have some sense of where you want to be. You’ll have to scroll pretty far down in each listing to see the map, and while it won’t give you the absolutely exact location, it will give you some sense of where you’ll be in relation to things like airports, water, parks, and subway stops.

If you want to dig into the possible location even more deeply, you can hop into Google Street View or Google Earth to get a better sense of what it will look like nearby.

Communicate With the Host If You Still Have Questions

Examined every picture and still can’t tell if there’s a bathtub? Wondering if someone in your party is going to end up on a sofa bed? Don’t be afraid to reach out to the host before you book!

Book Early

If you want the maximum number of options, especially in places with high seasonal demand, book early! I try to book anywhere between three and nine months ahead. Of course, you’re more likely to find bargains if you wait until the last minute — but for choice, earlier is better.

Deciding if an Airbnb is right for you? Here’s how to choose the best stay for your trip.

Planning a round-the-world adventure? Make sure you read my tips and checklists post first.