In 2014, I rented out my home to fund a trip. It felt a little crazy at the time. But it worked. And something clicked that I didn't fully understand yet.
What followed was a decade spent deep inside the short-term rental world. Hosting, managing properties, figuring things out the hard way. I loved most of it. But I also kept watching the same things go wrong, over and over, for people who deserved better.
Guests would book a place based on a handful of carefully chosen photos. They'd show up and find something completely different waiting for them. The "sun-drenched terrace" was a fire escape. The "spacious open-plan living" was a converted garage. The gap between the listing and reality had become so normal that people just expected it. They'd laugh it off, post a review, and do the whole thing again next time with the same photos and the same uncertainty.
On the other side, I watched hosts pour real love into their spaces and have almost no way actually to show it. A few photos on a listing page. A star rating. Maybe some written reviews. None of it came close to capturing what made a place special. And as the big platforms started tightening the screws on both guests and hosts, things kept getting harder for everyone involved.
We kept asking why this wasn't being fixed. Eventually, we decided to fix it ourselves.
That's where ReelStay came from. Not from a business plan or a market gap analysis. From a decade of frustration and a very clear picture of what a better version of this could look like.
ReelStay is a video-first travel platform. Every property listed on it has a real video walkthrough filmed by a travel creator. Not a virtual tour. Not a slideshow with background music. A genuine reel showing the space as it actually is, with real lighting, real proportions, real feel. When you watch it, you know what you're walking into. That gap between expectation and reality disappears because the reel tells the truth in a way photos never can.
The experience of browsing ReelStay feels closer to scrolling through a travel feed than clicking through a traditional booking site. You move through videos, the platform learns what kind of spaces and trips appeal to you, and gradually it gets better at surfacing things that genuinely fit your style. It is a completely different way of finding somewhere to stay.
What makes it work is the three sides that hold it together. Travellers get the confidence that comes from actually seeing a space before they book it. Hosts finally have a way to show their property properly, to let the care they've put into it actually come through. And travel creators get something genuinely new. If they've filmed a hotel, a villa, an Airbnb, any kind of stay and posted it on their channel, that content can now live on ReelStay and earn them a share of every booking it drives. Their name stays on the listing. Their reel keeps earning. They don't have to film anything new.
We have 240,000 cinematic reels on the platform right now across more than 80 countries. The response has been immediate. Then the numbers land as proof of momentum rather than a sudden gear change.
But honestly, the number that matters most to me is not on the platform at all. It's the moment a guest walks through the door, and it looks exactly like the video. No disappointment. No recalibration. Just exactly what they booked.
That's what this was always about. A house, a trip, a gut feeling, and ten years of watching a broken system do the same damage to good people. We built the platform we always wished existed. ReelStay is live now and free to download on the App Store at myreelstay.com.
