What are we up to?
We (John and Noelle) and our two daughters started sharing our Seaside home with travelers using AirBnb in 2015.
We found that we loved hosting people and getting to know them. Coffee and dinners were typical venues for chatting with our guests. Connecting with people—learning about them and their lives—was fascinating to us. And as writers, it was fun to bounce our ideas for books and other projects off new people.
As time went on, we had two more kids and ended up moving to Boulder, Colorado, where Noelle’s originally from. We continued renting out our home in Seaside and another one in Salinas. We asked our friend Johnny (he’s more like family) to maintain them for guests. Since then, we’ve continued to list more homes on various platforms.
What started as a fun experiment was becoming something more like a proper business, and we realized we ought to have a name for it! “Ark Vacations” came to us one afternoon in 2023, after many brainstorming sessions. We liked how it conveyed a place of refuge and peace.
Back in 2015, AirBnb was still relatively new. Big property management companies weren’t using it like they do today, and booking on AirBnb was, more often than not, a highly personal and down-to-earth affair. We’ve tried to hold onto the spirit of our earliest forays into AirBnb. The homes we rent out to guests are homes that are very close to our hearts; our own family has spent lots of time in each of them.
Inviting you into our homes is an invitation into our lives!
-The Ehab Family
John Ehab was born in Egypt to an Egyptian-Christian (Coptic) family of opticians and architects. He studied business but now works in journalism, education, and community service.
Noelle Ehab comes from a Lebanese-American Christian missionary family. She grew up in Boulder, Colorado and studied actor-created, movement-based theatre in London. She has taught writing and public speaking at American universities in Lebanon and Cairo.