Homestay Hospitality on Tybee Island, Georgia

Patty makes an amazing martini. She also makes some fantastic grits.

Admittedly, my experience of the latter isn’t based on years of first hand experience, what with these being the fourth plate of grits I’d ever had. So maybe we should focus on the martini. That was truly excellent, and just what I needed after a full day of exploring.

I suspect you might like some context. As noted in this post, I’m currently an ambassador for Homestay, which means that as we travel along, from time to time we’ll stay with Homestay and share our experiences. In this case, we were staying with Patty, on Tybee Island, just near the city of Savannah in Georgia. You can read all about our experiences visiting Savannah and Tybee island in this post.

Today, I’m going to tell you more about that Homestay experience, and why this is quite a different thing to other types of accommodation available.

First and foremost, a homestay is built entirely around the idea that it’s a hosted experience. No quick exchange of keys followed by having the place to yourself – the theory is that you’re living in someone’s home, and you’re going to get to know them a bit, learn about the local area based on their expertise, and have a more immersive and richer experience as a result.

Of course, talking to the two hosts we’ve stayed with so far, this immersion is really up to you in terms of how much interaction you want with your host. If you just want to chat with them over coffee in the morning and then be left alone, both the hosts have said that that’s entirely fine with them, and happens from time to time. But most guests really appreciate the option to get local insights, tips and advice, and take advantage of that, and that’s why they choose to use Homestay.

I fall firmly into this latter camp. I love talking to people and hearing their stories, and our host, Patty, in Tybee, was wonderfully easy to talk to. She also had a super cute little dog, who barked to high heaven when we arrived, hid on his bed for a while when we came in, and then concluded that maybe we were ok after all.

Of course, having a great host is all well and good, but you need somewhere that suits your needs as well. In the case of Patty’s property on Tybee Island, we had no complaints. I mean, look at the photos. There’s a giant jetted tub. His and hers sinks. A whole separate shower room. And that’s just the bathroom! We also had our own parking space, balcony space for watching the sunset, and a gorgeous master bedroom.

The house itself had loads of space for us to relax in beyond our room, spread out across two floors (plus ground floor parking and a roof-top balcony), plus a well stocked kitchen for cooking in. The nature of our lives means we often need to work on the go, and the expansive dining room table was perfect for that.

Speaking of working on the go, I was having huge issues with my Dell laptop at the time, which was refusing to accept power.This took it out of commission whilst I battled with Dell’s international customer support system. That would be another blog post, if I could summon the effort to write it.

The reason I’m bringing this up is because I had an ever increasing mountain of work that was piling up, one thing in particular being to put the finishing touches on the photography course I’ve recently launched, and no means of doing it.

Patty stepped in, and offered me the use of her laptop for the duration of my stay, meaning I could accomplish a whole lot of stuff whilst still finding the time to explore Savannah. As you can imagine, this was a life saver, and I am so grateful to Patty for her kindness.

As with all homestays, breakfast was included, and Patty’s has a friend who happens to make excellent baked goods, so we dined on those. When we weren’t feasting on sausage filled home-made grits of course. And then, of course, one evening after a tough day of exploring, I was offered a martini whilst I caught up with e-mails and photography course revisions. Which was a very welcome distraction.

In summary, if you’re thinking of spending some time in Georgia, and in particular the Savannah region, do think about paying Patty a visit. She has a wonderful home, with only the one room available to guests so you’ll not be sharing with anyone. Oh, and the sunrise / sunset views from that roof terrace have to be seen to be believed!

So you know: Our accommodation in Tybee Island was provided by Homestay as part of our ambassadorship with them. All opinions remain our own. Check out our code of ethics for more information on who we choose to work with!