My affair with Airbnb is well and truly over. Here's why I'm booking hotels again

My first Airbnb experience was in Seville, Spain, in 2013. The owner, who lived downstairs, greeted me like an old friend and insisted on carrying my bag up to the top-floor apartment, where he gave me notes on his favourite bars and restaurants, demonstrated how to use the temperamental shower and told me to knock on his door at any time. That evening, I sat on the terrace at sundown, gazing across the terracotta rooftops of the old town, quietly congratulating myself on finding this gem at a fraction of the price of a hotel.

Back then, Airbnb felt like a revelation, a warm, human counterpoint to the corporate blandness of hotels. It was still new and cool, disruptive and faintly rebellious. I loved the idea of supporting an actual person instead of an international hotel chain and embraced the concept wholeheartedly, staying in art nouveau apartments in Paris, attic rooms in Prague and historic cottages in regional Australian towns.

"Oh, you still stay in hotels?" I'd ask friends with mock incredulity and a secret sense of superiority.

But as Airbnb grew, there was a gradual shift. Key safes started to replace in-person welcomes. Face-to-face conversations became automated messages, handwritten lists of favourite neighbourhood bistros gave way to slightly threatening instructions on rubbish removal, dishwasher loading and linen stripping. The eclectic furniture and personal touches were replaced by flat-pack minimalism, screwed-to-the-shower-wall body wash dispensers and generic art prints. And prices increased, narrowing the once considerable gap between Airbnb and hotels.

I also began to notice the same "hosts" were managing dozens of properties on the Airbnb website. It was no longer residents renting out a spare room or their investment property, but companies with vast portfolios, hollowing out neighbourhoods and pushing up house prices.

The romance was starting to tarnish.

One winter two years ago, I stayed in a room in an Airbnb in a New England town. It looked so cosy online, but had no heating and was Arctic. I messaged the owner, asking if she perhaps had a heater, and she (eventually) replied tersely that no one had ever complained about being cold before. I decamped to the pub across the road to thaw out by their fire with a glass of red wine and returned to find she'd entered my room and left a small bar heater, along with a note stressing that she was sacrificing her own personal heater for me. I plugged it in, and the power promptly tripped, so I gave up, threw on all my clothes and went to bed.

There were other moments, too, a key code changed without notice, uncontactable hosts, last-minute cancellations, lumpy beds, cold showers, threadbare towels, and faint, unidentifiable smells.

Hotels, meanwhile, were quietly transforming. They retired the beige and the functional, and began to personalise rooms and public spaces. Even large brands began opening smaller, design-led sister properties. I drifted back and stayed in hotels that had their own signature scents and "guest happiness officers". There were ping-pong tables in hotel lobbies, and original modern art on the walls. There was 24-hour convenience, security and, crucially, accountability. Best of all, there were no surprise cleaning fees, no chore lists and no complicated check-in instructions.