Airbnb’s New Adapted Category Offers Beautiful Design and Verified Access


Airbnb has debuted a new Adapted homes category, which allows you to browse and book a variety of unique homes across the world that have step-free access and dedicated accessibility features.  

The Adapted category debuts with 1,000 listings. Every home in the category has, at the minimum, step-free access to the home and step-free access to at least one bedroom and bathroom, plus at least one accessibility feature in the bathroom, whether that’s a grab bar, a roll-in shower or a shower bench.  

The goal isn’t to provide units that will work for every wheelchair user, but to provide a baseline of access, hosts who’ve intentionally modified their homes with access features and enough variety that you can find something that works for you. “Those features are very useful and sometimes critical for people, but we also recognize that people’s needs are very different,” says Suzanne Edwards, the accessibility standards lead at Airbnb. Edwards is a manual wheelchair user who came to Airbnb from the accessible vacation rental startup Accomable. 

The short-term rental giant has been trying, with mixed results, to expand and improve its rental offerings to wheelchair users for years, ever since it bought Accomable in 2017. Today’s release includes several upgrades intended to aid that effort.  

To give users reliable, verified information, Airbnb partnered with Matterport, a 3D imaging company. “We wanted to go further than just getting the hosts to add their own photos,” says Edwards. “We did 3D scans in all of these homes to verify features such as step height, threshold height and doorway width.” Every listing has photos pulled from those scans, so you can see room setups and accessibility features. Adapted category listings have doorway widths noted on the photos, and unit floor plans with dimensions so you can get a sense of layout and whether you and your family will have enough space to move around.  

Another upgrade includes an option for button-based panning and zooming on the mobile app, making it easier for switch-control users and others with limited hand function to navigate the listing map.  

For a wheelchair user browsing this new category, what’s most exciting isn’t just the access features, but that access is a given and many of the homes are beautiful and fun — the kind of places that you’d build a vacation around. There’s a castle in Spain, treehouses in Brazil and Alabama, and a dome house in North Carolina. I’ve never thought of traveling to El Robledo, a small town about two hours from Madrid. But if I had an accessible castle to stay in? Sign me up.  

The Adapted category’s 1,000 listings are a tiny fraction of the service’s 6 million total active listings, but Edwards has her eyes on growth as the category launches. “This is just the start of showing what’s possible,” she says. “We only want to grow this more and more and encourage hosts who maybe already have these adaptations to nominate themselves to be part of this. … Something I’m particularly excited about as well is getting other people with disabilities to become hosts.” 

To that end, Airbnb has expanded its AirCover insurance for hosts, and expanded a program that lets newbies pair with experienced hosts who can answer questions and help set up their listings. “Over the summer, I rented out my house while I was away for a couple of weeks,” says Edwards, who lives in southern England. “And it was great. It’s such a good way to be able to share my home with other disabled people who might benefit from it, and then some extra money, which helped on my holidays. It’s a no-brainer.” 


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Katherine M Stice
Katherine M Stice
1 year ago

Per the discussion in a previous New Mobility was the height of beds. It would be great if Airbnb would add this feature for unit owners to comment on.

BRUNO E. SANTOS
BRUNO E. SANTOS
1 year ago

And under bed clearance of 4.5 inches for those of us who depend on Hoyer Lifts for transfers.

Murray Siple
1 year ago

It’s a crime 90% of hotel beds are 6 higher than my regular every day wheelchair and commode chair. I have to call ahead specifically about bed height each time I book a hotel. Side note it is impossible to find accessible air bnb lstings in Hawaii and in Europe, very stores ing to look at a city in london snd redukts say “zero listings.”

Maya Orlow
Maya Orlow
1 year ago

I hope they’re not disproportionately more expensive as those with disabilities are financially disenfranchised as is.

BRUNO E. SANTOS
BRUNO E. SANTOS
1 year ago

Looking at the Dome house in North Carolina, the bed is on Legs which makes it accessible for those of us depending on a Hoyer Lift to transfer In/Out o the bed.
Thank you Airbnb.

Last edited 1 year ago by BRUNO E. SANTOS