Top 50 Airbnb Dream Homes

Treehouses, A Hot Travel Trend

The big winner—and big surprise—was treehouses. In no less than 12 states, from one end of the country to the other, from Maine and Vermont to Washington, along with North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Illinois and yes, New York, plus several others, treehouses ruled. It might be a small subset of all homes and architectural styles out there, but it is what travelers are dreaming about in a full quarter of the country, a real travel trend.

Treehouses have also been hot at resorts, and I wrote about the eight new luxury treehouses added in 2024 at what is consistently rated one of the best luxury resorts in the entire country, and one of the best all-inclusive resorts in the world, the longtime Forbes 5-Star Twin Farms in Vermont (the rise of luxury all-inclusives is another hot travel trend I recently covered here at Forbes).

Twin Farms is probably the smallest hotel in the country in term of number of rooms to win so many accolades: Town + Country “World’s Best Adults-Only Resorts”; Travel + Leisure “The Most Romantic Couples Resorts in the World”; Brides “Best Honeymoon Resorts in the US and Canada”; Food + Wine’s 2023 Global Tastemaker Awards, Number One in the US for both Best Hotel For Food and Best Hotel Bar. in 2020 it also won Forbes Travel Guide’s “Hotel of the Year” for having the highest score of any of the 107 5-Stars in the world—98.24% out of a possible 100, according to Boston Magazine.

But Twin Farms and Airbnb are not alone in the dreamy treehouse trend. Other top luxury resorts that have added this form of lodging include California’s acclaimed Forbes 4-Star Post Ranch Inn, Virgina’s Auberge Collection Primland Resort, Connecticut’s Winvian, Wahington’s Skamania Lodge and England’s Chewton Glen Hotel & Spa. You can stay at fancy treehouses from Australia to Costa Rica.

Back To Nature

The other big winner among Airbnb fans was wilderness cottages and cabins, which were the choice from Indiana to Idaho and half a dozen other states. Another surprise was the strength of A-Frames, a home style nearly as rare as treehouse, with four winners from Utah to Minnesota to Alaska. The only surprise about the five waterfront homes is that there were so few of these, and this includes lakes. The only “obvious” pick in this category was Florida, where the top spot went to a houseboat/cottage in Key West.

The field was rounded out by some eclectic picks including architectural wonders (like a Frank Lloyd Wright house), two homes made from former silos, a dome, one shape liked a camera and an Old West Saloon. The national map of the Top 50 Airbnb Dream Homes is here, but be forewarned—once you start clicking it is hard to stop.