Marie's place is a great house in a quiet neighborhood, a long walk or short drive to downtown Palo Alto, grocery stores, and restaurants. The backyard is stunning. Her place feels like a throwback to the early days of AirBnB (in a good way): a private owner sharing their former home with you, so it's incredibly well stocked, a warm and welcoming host (Marie stocked coffee, snacks, and breakfast stuff for us before we arrived and gave us a bottle of wine to celebrate the holidays), no crazy laundry list of chores to do at checkout, and not a sterile and barely appointed place managed by a company whose primary concern is controlling costs. Marie herself was very responsive and helpful throughout our stay.