How Being an Airbnb Superhost Gave Me a Writing Superpower

I’ve been an Airbnb superhost for thirteen years, sharing my four-bedroom Chicago apartment with tourists, marathoners, traveling nurses, university students, and visiting professors. I’ve met Americans from coast to coast and travelers from nearly every continent.

Thanks to my proximity to Northwestern and Loyola, there have been many PhD candidates: a scientist working on the Noah’s Ark project to reverse engineer the DNA of endangered species, a chemist visiting Loyola for access to a rare microscope, a French literature specialist writing a dissertation about the intersection of librettos and fairy tales.

There was the man who came to spread his mother’s ashes in Lake Michigan decades after her passing; the Englishman chaperoning his girlfriend’s introverted teenage daughter so she could meet an online friend in person for the first time; the woman who shrieked and threw herself against the wall when she saw our eight-pound poodle.

From my little corner of the world, I’m given a glimpse into the wider world. Through the eyes of strangers, I see my surroundings anew. I get to gaze at Lake Michigan again and again with fresh appreciation. I’m reminded to try new dishes from the ethnic restaurants I recommend. I’ve discovered that the two largest draws in Chicago are Lollapalooza and the architecture boat tour.

But the real reason I love hosting guests? It hones one of my most valuable writing tools: curiosity.

I’ve always been a curious person, but I was raised to believe that asking questions in general, and of strangers in particular, was bad manners. My inquiring mind was often met with: ‘We don’t talk about that.’ ‘Don’t be nosy.’ ‘Mind your own business.’ Genuine interest was viewed suspiciously, as if there had to be a hidden agenda. 

I learned to keep quiet and observe from a distance. 

This is likely why I chose to get a degree in journalism. What freedom! Asking who, what, why, where, and when was actually my job. I was given explicit permission to be curious, to dig deeper, to ask the questions that mattered.

In my work as a developmental editor, I’m constantly encouraging writers to ask WHY. Why does my protagonist want this? Why will my reader care about this quest? Why is this the right scene to begin or end the story?

Asking why makes us go deeper into motivation and character development. It helps us question our assumptions, shows us where our story falls apart, and where it needs more clarification and context.

Being an Airbnb host allows me to practice that same principle on an interpersonal level, over morning coffee. Why are you traveling to Chicago? What do you hope to experience while you’re here? What brings you joy? Asking strangers about their life doesn’t make me nosy—it makes me present. And it makes them feel seen.

I remember one conversation with a PhD statistician who was developing a system to identify trees based on leaf patterns. On the surface, we had little in common. I could have stuck to small talk about the weather or Chicago’s neighborhoods.

But I asked why this project? Why trees?

As he explained his cataloging system, his face changed. He told me he loves trees. And so do I. And then he said he’d run out of letters in the alphabet to code his system. There simply weren’t enough letters to capture what he needed to convey.

As a writer, I know that feeling. There are not enough words, not enough letters, not enough language to say what we mean.

In that moment, we recognized something in each other. We both try to organize, understand, and communicate about the world—and we’ve both discovered that language has limits.

That’s identification. That’s the moment when a stranger becomes a character, a conversation becomes a story, and we realize we’re not alone.

Kafka wrote: “You don’t need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Don’t even listen, simply wait. Don’t even wait. Be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you. To be unmasked, it has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.” 

Sometimes, the world offers itself as a stranger from a faraway place, and I get to flex my superpower—the desire to know the inner workings of another person, why they do the things they do, what matters to them. 

Wielding curiosity means unlearning the old lessons about politeness and propriety. It means saying yes to the guests in our lives—literal or imagined. It means asking the next question instead of stopping at small talk.

My advice? Don’t be afraid of it. Or apologize for wanting to know more about the people around you.

When we ask the questions that matter, we discover the person standing in front of us has an inner world as complex and compelling as any we could invent.

That’s when we’re no longer hosting strangers—we’re connecting with real people and real stories. Then we get to write about it.