We’ve put two kids through UBC in the past decade, so we’ve stayed a lot of places in Vancouver. They’ve ranged from a youth hostel (where our daughter worked as a receptionist) to the Fairmont Hotel and the Pan Pacific, and between those two extremes were several Airbnb accommodations. Of the Airbnb places, Mary’s little garden apartment is by far the nicest. In fact, I found it more comfortable than the world-class hotels.

It’s a little garden-level apartment whose floor is a couple feet below street level, but it has enough windows to make it feel bright and airy. Mary and her husband, Albert, recently renovated the unit, but you don’t get the feeling they cut corners to maximize their return on investment. Rather, it feels like it was important to them to make it nice. There are electrical outlets all over the place, the kitchen is well equipped with a good range and deluxe plumbing fixtures. An attractive cut-glass panel in the front door. A huge flat-screen TV, and a little speaker system for an iPhone. The kitchen has all the basic equipment you could want, and the kitchen cabinets and refrigerator are well stocked with ingredients like cooking oil and soy sauce, mustard and ketchup and – during our visit – even rice, breakfast cereal, and peanut butter. A big stack of fluffy towels in the bathroom. I could go on, but you get the idea: lots of extra, unnecessary touches that make a visit really pleasant.

We’ve stayed at a lot of Airbnb-type apartments, in both North America and Europe, and we’ve never had a really bad experience. But even among all those positive experiences, Mary’s little garden apartment stands out as a real gem.