text: There's No Place Like Homes - The New York Times
  Have you heard of Airbnb? Of course you have. Have you used it to book your vacation lodging? Probably not.
  Despite the sizable number of listings and healthy membership base of home-sharing sites, the peer-to-peer lodging industry is still dwarfed by traditional hotels and resorts. There are about 14 million hotel rooms available worldwide, according to the hotel research firm STR Global, which means, given average occupancy rates, that hoteliers host more than 2.5 billion nightly stays every year.
  You would have to have the equivalent of roughly 50 Airbnbs to reach that volume.
  Those figures suggest that a lot of travelers are still on the fence when it comes to vacationing at someone else's home. While home-sharing sites are steadily proliferating — with the addition of Roomorama, Wimdu and Warmshowers — plenty of us have yet to test the waters, because it is a stranger's pool, after all.
  Many cautious adopters hold off because they are unsure of what to expect while crashing at a private residence. Will you have to clip the homeowner's cat's claws while he's away? And will you be able to take their fancy car out for a spin?
  The following essays answer those questions and more as they explore the best (and occasionally worst) part of vacationing at a stranger's house, through house-sitting, home-swapping and vacation rental sites.
  Tired of generic motels, a family tried the vacation-rental website and had memorable, if not always cozy, experiences. STUART MILLER
  Lending your home in exchange for someone else's is kind to your budget and offers a chance to act like a local. AMY VIRSHUP
  House sitters, aided by websites that connect them with strangers who are planning vacations, find that a vagabond lifestyle isn't so bad. SUSAN CABA
  An article on Jan. 4 introducing a series of essays about house-sitting, home-swapping and vacation rental websites like Airbnb misstated the number of nightly hotel stays that take place around the world, given that there are about 14 million hotel rooms available worldwide. It is 2.5 billion, not 2.5 trillion.
  A version of this article appears in print on , on Page TR6 of the New York edition with the headline: There's No Place Like Homes. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe