There’s a new game in town in the world of vacation rentals and the owners think they’re on to something.

  • Guestwings brings mobile guest suites to homes
  • Tampa area entrepreneurs came up with the idea
  • Utilizes Airstream campers with all the hotel comforts

At first glance Terri Shapiro and her husband Michael McNutt, said it may look like your average Airstream trailer. But they said it’s their newest business venture called GuestWings that’s putting a unique twist on vacation rentals.

“GuestWings is about having some extra room for when you have company. So many people in the Tampa Bay area don’t have huge homes but yet everyone wants to visit,” Shapiro said.

The couple said they got the idea last year to launch their website and turn the house on wheels into a profit.

“What tricked it off for us was my daughter’s wedding and I wanted to have my entire brother’s family with us but we didn’t have the room. But we had at that point a little tiny Airstream in our yard and it really worked out so perfectly, it occurred to us that if we had that need so would other people in the area,” Shapiro said.

According to Shapiro, people have compared their Airstream to a mother-in-law-suite on wheels. “We’ve actually had several people make that comment to us and they giggled about it as well,” she said.

Another comparison they’ve gotten, an Airbnb that rolls. “Well the difference between this and an Airbnb is we’re not renting to tourists. So in some ways we’re not renting to strangers so we’re getting to know the people that we’re renting to. The Airstream can’t go in every lot some have restrictions. And it’s for their friends and family,” she said.

Her husband said it’s a lot like a hotel and it has a little bit of everything, including bedding and toiletries.

“We’re not camping here. All we’re doing is providing a guest suite that’s like any hotel room. If you can walk in a hotel room and use the bathroom and shower and go to bed you can do that here also,” McNutt said. “To have the charm and the room right in your driveway and still have all of the conveniences of a super modern hotel room, I think it’s a pretty good deal.”

And for $239 a night, it’s got the amenities of a hotel. There’s a queen sized bed, a dinette table that doubles as a full sized bed, a full kitchen, including a gas stove and oven. There’s also a flat screen TV and a pretty roomy bathroom.

Everything inside of the trailer runs off of batteries. But if you want the company can provide you with a generator or they could even come to your home and plug into your electricity. You’ll need that generator or power from your house to run the air conditioner. It’s something we all know is needed in Florida. The couple is hoping people in the bay area will see a need for these retro digs like they did.

Shapiro said they make sure the renters have the space in their yards to rent the units. So far they have two that they rent out in the bay area.