I lived in AirBnBs for a couple of years, travelling around Europe. The way I afforded it was (1) to have a decent remote job (not a developer) and (2) to have given up my home in the UK, so no rent or bills to pay for that, and (3) to take advantage of long-term deals -- if you reserve for a month or more you can get a significant reduction on the daily or weekly rate. For example, I stayed for two months in a beach-side appartment in Crete for about £600 ($780) per month, all bills and a cleaner included, which is considerably less than I'm paying now for rent on a small house in the UK.