A broad online search for a fall weekend getaway offering easily accessible peace and quiet opened up a world of unexpected accommodations recently. After fathoming the flurry of options—through Hotel Tonight, tourism board tweets, bedandbreakfast.com, and the MTA’s getaway packages—I chose to embark on a new kind of local adventure. And while the Web can often feel like an irresistible life-sucking trap, it makes you savor the unplugged moments and can send you packing to the most bizarre and beautiful places close to home.
Skip the predictable, impersonal hotel experience on your next city break and opt instead for an affordable and memorable stay in someone’s house in the wilderness of Woodstock or a wedding planner’s luxurious yurt in the Hudson Valley, a couple’s chic barn on the coast of Rhode Island, an environmentalist’s geodesic dome on an organic Connecticut farm, or a hotelier’s own cottage with a private beach in East Hampton.
For those interested in raising the travel bar, these six cozy hideaways await your visit, courtesy of Airbnb. (And no, this is not an advertisement.)
