Il-hosting għen lil dan ir-rancher minn Texas ikabbar l-art mhux mimsusa tiegħu

When Superhost Michael stands on his ranch in southern Texas, he can point in any direction and tell you what lies on the horizon. He knows his neighbors by name, the many species of wild animals, and the contours of the vast and rugged landscape. He’s lived and traveled far and wide since childhood, but this is home.

“I felt connected to this land from the time I was a boy,” he says. “My grandfather was running cattle out here. That’s probably when I fell in love with the land, and the vastness of it, just riding fences as a boy.”

Michael grew up occupying two worlds. The son of an engineer, he lived in more than a dozen countries by the time he was a teenager. But he spent summers on his family’s ranches—one grandfather's in Texas and the other's in Mexico—and returned to Texas as a teen.

Out running cattle, Michael was alone for weeks at a time. It was very different from a childhood of constant motion, and he came to understand in his bones the power of solitude.

“Civilization has its benefits, but it also leaves scars, and it sort of makes everybody go fast,” he says. “I consider this land pretty much the last of the untouched.”

On the ranch, Michael truly connected with nature. He’d go on to marry, have two children, and build a successful career in medical research. He now splits his time between a lakefront house in Fort Worth and an apartment in New York City, but that connection with nature fuels him—and he wants others to experience it too.

In 2010, two friends in France bought a ranch in the area to build a second home. Michael agreed to help, and when the couple divorced during the two-year build, he took over the project and property.

Mostly retired from medicine and focusing on real estate and ranching, Michael decided to host the house. He’d been an Airbnb guest on trips abroad and loved the idea of hosting to share what you love. And he loves this house—solar-powered, off-grid, its glass walls letting in the vast panorama.

Michael listed it in 2013 and has racked up nearly 200 glowing reviews. The house is “one of the most beautiful, unique places anywhere,” one Airbnb guest writes. “Being so remote, it puts your brain in a different gear immediately.” Another calls it an “experience that will live forever in your memories.”

Javelina, aoudad, bighorn sheep, birds of prey, and “every kind of reptile you can imagine” roam this stretch of Texas, which is in the Big Bend area. “You really couldn’t have art in the house," Michael says. "You just can’t compete with nature.”

Hosting allows Michael to share “some of the most beautiful land you’ve ever seen" while keeping it wild by expanding the acreage but not the herd.

“To me, that’s the whole story,” Michael says. “Not only does Airbnb allow me to share this beautiful place, but it also monetizes this. Hosting has given me a unique way to raise the cattle organically and in harmony with the land. We don’t ranch intensively because it’s about balance. When we buy more land, we take down the fences and keep it open.”

Michael wants to pass this work down to his son and daughter. For now, he visits monthly, while a housekeeper, as well as automated security and guest check-ins, keep logistics manageable.

Michael cherishes the connections he builds with his guests. They often talk by phone—especially about the families of javelinas roaming past—and Michael, now a grandfather, invents fun chores for the kids, like checking the watering troughs and looking for animal prints.

“It’s sending them on a little adventure where they learn something,” he says. He even lets them name the calves born during their stay.

While many guests come to visit Big Bend National Park, Michael says most decide to stay on the ranch.

“That tells me they got it—that experience of remoteness, reconnecting with the land, and a simplistic way of living,” he says. “That's one of the beneficial things about hosting—having people begin to understand it."

Interested in hosting your own ranch or other unique stay?