You can call it a bed and breakfast, an Airbnb or a VRBO (Vacation Rental By Owner), but when you come right down to it, you’re staying in someone else’s house. Someone you didn’t know before and will probably never see again.

But while you’re there (here), you become intimately acquainted with the play of morning light on window blinds, the amount of pressure required to turn the faucet, the location of the bathroom light switch so you can flick it on in the dark.

I’m a private person, one who doesn’t take naturally to early morning conversation with strangers while making a cup of tea … but somehow, this works for me.

It’s calming to stay in a house rather than a hotel. It feels as if I’m part of a community and not just visiting. And indeed I am — just one member of a band of travelers who want to see a place from the inside out.