Who gets to go to the beach?

Like so many North Carolinians, I recently enjoyed the long weekend, escaping to the coast for one last beach trip before the unofficial end of summer. A few days off, quality family time, nowhere particular to be. It is the kind of trip that is easy to take for granted until you realize how many people cannot take it at all.

Increasingly, beach vacations are becoming reserved for the elite, as many coastal towns are eliminating accommodation options for families and restricting the rights of locals who want to share their homes as short-term rentals.

In fact, earlier this summer Airbnb released its “Coast More, Pay Less” report, and the numbers tell a story that anyone who has planned a family beach trip lately already knows firsthand. In 33% of North Carolina’s coastal towns, a short-term rental is the only option where families can spend less than $300 per night on a two-bedroom stay. For a lot of families, a short-term rental is the difference between a beach vacation and no trip at all.

Areas along the North Carolina coast are becoming increasingly popular, with searches for Airbnb listings in North Carolina’s coastal towns over the Fourth of July holiday weekend up nearly 30% this year. Data also shows that nearly 48% of Airbnb searches for North Carolina coastal listings come from families and groups.

As these families make memories, the hosts welcoming them are making something else: vital supplemental income. The typical Airbnb host in North Carolina earned $14,000 in 2025, often helping to cushion a fixed income, offset rising insurance costs or simply hold on to a property that might otherwise slip out of reach. An estimated 80% of North Carolina hosts share just one listing, meaning that for the vast majority, this is a way to earn extra money or connect with visitors, not a full-time commercial operation.

These hosts and the families make up a meaningful, if often overlooked, part of the state’s tourism economy. Travel on Airbnb generated more than $3 billion in economic activity in North Carolina in 2025, supported 39,900 jobs, and produced $144 million in tourism tax revenue collected and remitted on behalf of hosts. This tourism activity is part of what makes North Carolina one of the fastest-growing economies in the country.

Here on the coast, it makes me proud to watch friends and neighbors leverage their most valuable asset in ways that grow our state’s economy and keep our beaches within reach for working families. For me, as a career defender of property rights, it also runs deeper than that. Every host who opens their home to a guest is exercising a fundamental right, one that traces back to the foundations of American law and the North Carolina Constitution alike.

North Carolina law has long favored the free use and enjoyment of private property. The North Carolina Supreme Court has even described property rights as a fundamental right “as old as our state.” Our courts apply that principle concretely: Ambiguous land-use restrictions are construed in favor of the property owner. And the General Assembly has gone further by prohibiting local governments from imposing certain rental permit and registration requirements as a condition of leasing residential property.

That is not a principle that should be easy to take away, and yet overzealous local regulators are doing exactly that, restricting short-term rentals in ways that go well beyond reasonable regulation and telling property owners what they can and cannot do with land and homes they own.

Overregulation threatens more than beach vacations or our booming economy. At its core, it undermines the basic principle that what you own is yours to use. That principle is worth defending, whether you are a host or a guest, a visitor or a local, or someone who simply believes that owning property still means something in North Carolina.

Jessica Thompson is an Airbnb public policy manager for North Carolina. She previously served as the director of government affairs at the John Locke Foundation and was a constitutional litigator at Pacific Legal Foundation.