Copenhagen Bike & Breakfast 1

Cargo bike sofa – Photo by Mikael Colville-Andersen for Airbnb listing 

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to travel to your favourite cities around the world and to stay in a reasonably-priced flat in the heart of the city and have bicycles readily available to tour around town?

Add to that, a friendly and passionate host who can tell places you should visit and places you should avoid, and one who makes the time to ensure your visit is as memorable as possible?

This is precisely what our friend Mikael Colville-Andersen – from Copenhagenize Design Co. – is doing in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Mikael listed his flat on airbnb.com and takes guests into his home while providing them bicycles to get around the city, sometimes even giving them tours of the city (by bike of course).

This gives Mikael the opportunity to meet fascinating people from all over the world – and allows him to showcase his bicycle-friendly city – giving hope to those of us who live amidst the car culture that has tainted North America.

Mikael explains in an email to The Urban Country his rationale for opening his home to strangers:

“Airbnb has been a great experience. I had an extra room and thought about renting it out to a student but didn’t want a “roommate”. Airbnb has provided me with a far more rewarding experience. I grew up in a home without locks on the doors and where neighbours and family wandered in and out as they pleased. We were also a host family for refugees from Czechoslovakia, Uganda and Vietnam. So airbnb has given me the chance to recreate, in a way, this culture of welcoming strangers into my home. Great for me, great for my kids and great for the guests.

This is certainly something I would love to do if I had an extra room in my loft. Although Toronto has a long way to go to be anything like Copenhagen, it is still a great city to see by bicycle (as most cities are).

Here are a few photos from “Casa Copenhagenize”:

Living room – Photo by Mikael Colville-Andersen for Airbnb listing 

Bedroom – Photo by Mikael Colville-Andersen for Airbnb listing 

Bicycle Christmas tree – Photo by Mikael Colville-Andersen for Airbnb listing 

James D. Schwartz is the Editor of The Urban Country and is based in Toronto, Canada. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

More Articles Like This:

• A Cycling Revolution With Mikael Colville-Andersen (Dec 2009)
• Top 20 Bicycle Friendly Cities in the World (Apr 2013)
• You Are Wasting Your Life Away Sitting In Traffic (Apr 2013)
• Bicycles Are For People Who Can’t Be Late (March 2013)
• My Ideal World… (Sept 2012)
• The World Has Changed. So Can You. (April 2011)