The StayCloseBy Journal

Short notes on stays, sublets, and doing this properly.

Founder-written notes from building StayCloseBy in Rotterdam. No content-farm fluff. Just what is working, what is broken, and the bits we still refuse to fake.

A sparse apartment interior that feels more like a staged rental than a lived-in home
Founder Notes

Why so many Airbnbs feel dead inside

A blunt note on beige investor flats, anonymous check-ins, and why a stay with an actual human behind it still matters.

5 min readRead the note
Rotterdam NotesRead

Hosting friends in Rotterdam without turning your flat into a hostel

Hotels are pricey, random Airbnbs are hit and miss, and the couch gets old fast. This is the more sensible way we started handling friend visits in Rotterdam.

4 min readBy Ollie