Did you know you can book a travel photo shoot through Airbnb for as low as $56?
♥
♥
If you have a Facebook or Instagram account, by now you’ve surely seen those ads for SweetEscape, a website that lets you hire a photographer at your destination to take professional travel photos of you. It actually makes sense for a lot of people. If you’re traveling solo, you would either have to take a selfie, or keep asking strangers to take your photo, or not have photos of yourself at all. If you’re traveling with other people, you’d have to take turns taking a photo, or use a selfie stick, or again rely on the kindness (and photo-taking abilities) of strangers. None of those scenarios are bad but sometimes it’s just nice to know you’ll have at least a couple of decent photos to remind you of a trip you invested a lot of time, effort, and savings in. That said, SweetEscape is expensive! Their rates range from $300 to $500 for a 2-hour photo shoot that only lets you keep 40 photos. I’ve had friends tell me they were interested in the service until they saw how much it would cost. So I told them what I only fairly recently discovered myself: you can hire a photographer and book a travel photo shoot through Airbnb for as low as $56.
First, a few notes:
- I believe that if the only thing you take away from a trip are a bunch of fabulous photos, you’re kind of missing the point of travel. By all means, take photos and even hire a photographer to take photos of you, but don’t let having beautiful photos be your goal. Go for beautiful experiences. Learn, try, appreciate, grow. See the world, not just through the lens of a camera, but through the lens of your heart. Make it a trip that would still be worth savoring even if you lost all your photos.
– - I wish SweetEscape all the best and I think they’ve got a blockbuster in their hands. This post isn’t meant at all to put them down in any way. It’s just that, as a frugal traveler, I’m always looking for ways to spend less. This post is written for people like me who can’t, or aren’t willing to, fork up $500 for a 2-hour shoot. (Because for $500 I can go on two trips to Taipei or buy round-trip tickets to Paris!)
– - Here are links to both SweetEscape and Airbnb (see, I don’t play favorites, lol):
–
–
Why book photo shoots with Airbnb?
- They’re generally cheaper.
– - There’s usually more than one choice of photographers in a city.
– - Each photographer states from the outset what you can expect, what they will provide, where you will meet, etc.
– - Reviews from previous travelers are right there on the booking page.
–
SweetEscape does offer photo sessions in more cities than are currently available in Airbnb so you might not have a choice.
–
Airbnb Experiences
I actually stumbled onto these photo shoots while looking through the different experiences being offered at Airbnb. If you’re not familiar with Airbnb, they made their name offering travelers accommodations that range from shared rooms to entire homes. Recently, they’ve begun offering experiences as well, a lot of which are really interesting: from food tours to hikes to horse riding to samurai classes. If you haven’t yet, you should definitely go check them out.
Below are some of the photo shoots being offered at Airbnb. Take note that these are just some of the cities — just the ones that I came across while doing research — so if you’re going to a destination that’s not on here, it’s best to go to Airbnb itself, type the name of the city on the search bar, and click Experiences.
All photos in this post are courtesy of the Airbnb pages of the experiences featured here.
♥
♥
Amsterdam
- Amsterdam travel photo walk
- Hosted by Jan
- 2 hours
- ₱3,482 ($70) per person
- Minimum of 25 edited photos in print resolution
♥
Barcelona
- Star photo shooting
- Hosted by Joan
- 2 hours
- ₱3,002 ($61) per person
- 25 edited images
–
- Personal Paparazzi in Old Quarter
- Hosted by Francisco
- 3 hours
- ₱3,542 ($72) per person
- A selection of 50 or more of your best pics
–
- Park Güell Photo Session
- Hosted by Valeria
- 1.5 hours
- ₱3,903 ($79) per person
- 25 images with basic retouch
–
- Urban Portrait Photo Session
- Hosted by Valerio
- 2 hours
- ₱5,103 ($103) per person
- 15-20 edited pictures
♥
♥
New York
- Day/Night Photoshoot in Times Square
- Hosted by Jutharat
- 1 hour
- ₱2,790 ($56) per person
- 15-30 edited high res photos
–
- Hire pro-photographer!
- Hosted by Taeyeong
- 1 hour
- ₱4,483 ($90) per person
- 10 edited photos, 20 original photos
–
- Photoshoot on the Brooklyn Bridge
- Hosted by Sasha
- 1.5 hours
- ₱4,932 ($99) per person
- 40 high-res edited photos
–
- NYC Styled Photo Shoot
- Hosted by Timothy + Gina
- 1 hour
- ₱8,219 ($165) per person
- 50-75 edited digital images
♥
Paris
- Vibrant photos in Paris
- Hosted by Tania
- 2 hours
- ₱2,882 ($58) per person
- 40+ pictures, editing not included
–
- Portraits in Paris by a professional
- Hosted by Richard
- 1 hour
- ₱2,942 ($60) per person
- 20 HD photographs
–
- Photoshoot by award winning filmmaker
- Hosted by Felik
- 2 hours
- ₱3,002 ($61) per person
- Edited photos varying from 40 to 100 photos
–
- Urban Portrait Session
- Hosted by Alex
- 1 hour
- ₱5,103 ($103) per person
- Between 50 and 100 HD digital pictures sent after the editing
–
- Photo session around the Eiffel Tower
- Hosted by Alex
- 1 hour
- ₱5,103 ($103) per person
- Around 70 HD pictures
♥
♥
Rome
- A morning walk on the Aventine Hill
- Hosted by Lida
- 2 hours
- ₱2,882 ($58) per person
- 20 – 30 photos by e-mail
–
- Beautiful Portraits in Rome
- Hosted by Sal
- 2 hours
- ₱3,002 ($61) per person
- 20 – 30 edited photos
–
- Travel Photography 101 Discover Rome
- Hosted by Katie
- 2.5 hours
- ₱3,002 ($61) per person
- 20-30 Portraits by email
–
- Rome, street photography tips & learning
- Hosted by Luigi
- 3 hours
- ₱3,002 ($61) per person
- This is mainly a photography class but the host also says: “I will take a professional photos of you, I’ll send them via email or directly download to your memory stick if you bring one”
♥
Tokyo
- “TokyoGenic” Creative Photoshoot Tour
- Hosted by Kenta
- 1.5 hours
- ₱3,524 ($71) per person
- 15-20 retouched photos
–
- Take Fabulous Photos in Kimono
- Hosted by Ronski & Hiroko
- 3 hours
- ₱5,286 ($107) per person
- 40-50 professionally edited photos
–
- Photo shoot in Tokyo hidden spots
- Hosted by Yulia
- 2.5 hours
- ₱5,419 ($109) per person
- 25 retouched photos
♥
♥
Book now! Sign up for Airbnb here.
.
.
This is too funny! But if it’ll only cost around $50 or so, it might be worth it. lol
It’s really a bit like asking a stranger to take your photos, except that you pay for the guarantee of his time and that he’ll do it well. 🙂
Yeah when I see people’s insta pictures and I always wonder how on earth did they take such amazing photos! Maybe one day I’ll have them too, with the help of a photographer or better yet train my hubby to take amazing photos.
Nah!!!
Well, there are “Instagram boyfriends” and “Instagram husbands”! 😀 But seriously, I know some bloggers have an entire team to help them create their content. So we look at their Instagram, they have these beautiful pictures, and we wonder how they do it. And the answer is: with a photographer, a marketing assistant, a writing assistant, etc. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/03/travel/that-solo-travel-blogs-vacation.html
I would do a 2-hour photo session with my family to have something to hang in the wall, perhaps, kind of like how you’d hire a photographer to cover your wedding or some other event that you really feel is important. But to have a photographer following me around for the entire vacation is something else entirely.
Um yeah, I don’t get it. When I travel I want photos of the places I go to, not of myself. I think it’s a bit weird. And expensive!
Alison
For a lot of people, it’s a way of remembering the trip. My son, for example, likes going through photos of our trips. He’ll see one picture and say, “Oh, remember that time we x and there was a y and it did z.” It’s like when we write about our experience of a trip. We don’t just write about what we saw or what the facts are about that place; we also write about how it made us feel, what we thought. We could totally take ourselves out of the story but we don’t.