What to put in a welcome book — and what to leave out
A welcome book is read on the doorstep, by someone with their coat still on. Here is what belongs on its first page, what can wait, and what should not be in it at all.
Think about the moment the book is opened.
Your guest has found the key safe in the dark, dragged a case up the steps and pushed the door with their shoulder. They are not in the mood for a history of the village. They want three things, in this order: the WiFi, where to put the bags, and whether the heating is on. Everything else can wait until they have sat down.
That is the whole secret of a welcome book that gets read. Put the doorstep questions first, keep the rest short, and put nothing in it that will be out of date by spring.
Page one: the doorstep questions
If a guest reads only one page, it is this one. Keep it to a single screen or a single sheet.
- WiFi name and password, printed large, with the password in a font where a 1 and an l look different. If there is a QR code that joins the network, put it here too — a guest with cold hands will scan before they type.
- Where things are: the bins, the stopcock, the fuse board, spare bedding, the iron. One line each.
- Heating and hot water: which switch, which dial, and the one thing people get wrong ("the thermostat in the hall controls everything; the one in the bedroom is decorative").
- Check-out time and the two things you need them to do — strip the beds, or don't; put the key back in the safe; leave the heating on low in winter. Two things, not nine.
- How to reach you, and when you reply. "Message me on the app; I check it between 8am and 10pm" is more useful than a phone number with no hours.
Page two: the house
This is the page people turn to on the second evening.
- Appliances that are not obvious: the induction hob that needs the right pans, the oven with the symbols, the washing machine's quick cycle. A photo of the control panel with the buttons circled saves you a message.
- Rubbish and recycling — which bin, which day, where it goes on collection night. In most of the UK this is the thing guests get wrong most often, and it is the thing neighbours notice.
- House rules, short and kind. Quiet after 10pm because the walls are thin; shoes off because the floors are new; no smoking anywhere, including the garden. Say why, once.
- Parking, with the permit rules if there are any.
Page three: the neighbourhood
Now you have earned the right to recommend things. Keep it personal and keep it to a handful: the café that opens early, the chip shop that is actually good, the walk that fits between breakfast and lunch, the nearest pharmacy and the nearest late shop. Five or six places, each with one sentence about why. A list of thirty restaurants from a search engine is not a recommendation; it is homework.
What to leave out
- Anything that changes. Menus, prices, opening hours, bus timetables. Link to the source instead, or leave it to the guest's phone.
- Long welcomes. One warm paragraph is lovely. Three pages about the history of the house are for the bookshelf, not the welcome book.
- Rules you cannot keep. If the book says "we respond within the hour" and you are asleep, the book has made a promise for you.
- Threats. "Any breakage will be charged" sets a tone. "Please let us know if anything breaks — accidents happen" gets the same information and keeps the stay friendly.
Paper, phone, or both
A printed book lives in the house and never needs charging. A phone version reaches the guest before they arrive — they can read the check-in page on the train — and it updates everywhere the moment you change the WiFi password. Most hosts end up with both: the phone version for the journey and page one, a slim printed copy on the kitchen counter for the second evening.
If you want the printed kind, the Modern Emerald Green Welcome Book is a Canva template with the pages above already laid out, and the Cottage WiFi Sign is the single most-read page in the house, printed on its own. If you want the phone kind, the host apps are guest guides that open from a link or a QR code: you fill in a set-up form once, and it hands you one finished file with your WiFi, your house page and your neighbourhood in it.
Either way, start with the doorstep questions. Everything else in this post is page two.