Every host writes a welcome book eventually — usually after the third guest messages at 23:40 asking for the Wi-Fi password. The good ones all converge on the same shape, because guests ask the same questions in the same order everywhere in the world. This is that shape, as a template you can fill in for your own place in an evening.
The rule that makes a welcome book work
Write down anything you have explained twice. That is the entire method. A welcome book is not a brochure about your region; it is the list of answers you are tired of typing. If a guest has never asked it, it can wait. If two guests have asked it, it goes in tonight.
The eleven sections
1. Getting in
The one section that gets read under stress, on a phone, often at night, sometimes after a flight. Write it for that reader:
- The exact address, written so a navigation app resolves it — and what the building looks like from the street.
- Where the key is and how the lockbox or smart lock works, step by step, including what to do when the code does not work the first time.
- Which floor, which door, and what name (if any) is on the bell.
- A sentence about parking: where, whether it is free, and what to avoid.
2. Wi-Fi
Network name and password, spelled out in a way that cannot be misread — say “the number one, not the letter L” if your password invites the confusion. This is the single most-asked question in hosting. Put it early and make it copyable.
3. House rules
Short and honest. Quiet hours, smoking, pets, parties, extra visitors. Guests break rules they never saw far more often than rules they disagreed with — a welcome book is where the rules become impossible to miss.
4. How things work
The appliance section. Cover whatever in your place needs explaining to a stranger: the heating or air conditioning, the hob, the washing machine, the TV, the coffee maker, the boiler. One short paragraph each, written the way you would say it out loud.
5. Rubbish and recycling
Where the bins are, which bag goes where, and collection days if guests need to act on them. Nobody asks this one until it matters, and then it really matters.
6. Check-out
What “leave it tidy” means to you, specifically: strip the beds or not, dishes where, keys where, door locked how, by what time. Guests genuinely want to do this right; tell them what right is.
7. Emergencies and safety
Where the fuse box, water stop-valve, fire extinguisher and first-aid kit are. The local emergency number. Your number, and when it is fine to use it.
8. Getting around
How to get to and from the airport or station, where the nearest supermarket and pharmacy are, which taxi or ride app locals actually use, and anything about public transport a visitor would not guess.
9. Eating and drinking
Not a restaurant directory — three to five places you would actually send a friend, with one line each about why. A short, opinionated list gets used; a long, neutral one does not.
10. Worth doing nearby
Same rule. The beach, the trail, the market, the view — the handful of things a guest with one free afternoon should not miss, from someone who lives there.
11. The small print
Anything administrative: tourist tax, ID registration where the law requires it, when the cleaner comes for longer stays, what happens if something breaks.
Paper, PDF, or something guests can ask?
A printed binder works until the guest is standing at the lockbox — the moment they need it most is the moment it is locked inside the apartment with them on the wrong side of the door. A PDF travels better, but nobody re-downloads a PDF at midnight to search for “boiler”.
The reason we built Askello is that a welcome book is most useful when a guest can ask it questions: you paste what you have already written — this template, filled in — and guests scan a QR code, read the guide on their phone, and ask anything in their own language. The answers come from your words only; if the guide does not cover something, it says so and the question lands on your list to answer once, for every future guest.
You can see what that looks like from the guest’s side on the sample guide, and the questions hosts ask cover how it works. Whichever format you choose, the eleven sections above are the book — the format just decides how often you still get the 23:40 message.