What to put in a short-term rental guidebook (and what to leave out)

By Mark Myles, a short-term rental host in Campbell River, BC

A guidebook answers the questions guests would otherwise message you about, ideally before they think to ask. Most guidebooks try to hold everything, and the result is a document guests scroll past. What follows is what I’ve found guests actually look for, in the order they look for it.

My wife and I have hosted Brass Apple Cottage in Campbell River, BC, for almost two years. It’s a cozy, newly built, stand-alone house with everything you’d need for a getaway on the west coast of Canada, and many of our guests have told us it’s the best short-term rental they’ve stayed in. A lot of this, they taught us.

The first ten minutes: arrival

Guests open the guidebook most at the door and in the first hour. Put these first, each findable in seconds:

• Getting in. The address as it should be typed into a map app, where to park, which door, how the lock or key box works, and what to do if it doesn’t.
• Wi-Fi. Network name and password, written exactly. This is the most asked question in hosting, and it belongs on the first page and on a card in the rental.
• Your contact, and when to use it: a number for urgent things, and the message thread for everything else.

Living in the place

The things that are particular to your rental, so guests don’t have to work them out:

• How the heating, air conditioning, fireplace or hot tub works, with the one thing people get wrong.
• The TV and its remotes, if there’s anything unusual.
• Kitchen basics provided, and anything that shouldn’t go in the dishwasher.
• Garbage and recycling: which bin, which day, and where it goes.
• Quiet hours and house rules, kept short. A guest reads three rules and skims twenty.

Leaving

Check-out time, and what you actually need done: dishes, towels in a pile, garbage out, keys back. Keep it to the few things that matter to your turnover. A long check-out list reads like a chore list, and it shows up in reviews.

The neighbourhood: what stays the same

The question we’re asked most isn’t about the house at all. It’s “where do you like to eat?”, and close behind it, “is there anywhere with live music?” This is where a guidebook earns goodwill. Recommend what you’d tell a friend, not a list copied from a tourism site:

• Groceries and essentials: the nearest store, and when it closes.
• A few places to eat, with a line on why: the breakfast place, the one for a special dinner, the takeout that’s still open at nine.
• Walks and outdoor places close by, with how long they take.
• The practical ones: the nearest pharmacy, gas station and walk-in clinic, and the hospital.

In Campbell River, we send guests to Fifty Parallel Tap & Grill and to Beach Fire Brewing. Both are consistently good: the food, the drinks, the service and the room.

What to leave out: anything that changes every week

Here’s the trap. “There’s a farmers’ market on Saturdays” is true until the season ends. “The lake trail is lovely” is true until it closes for repairs. A concert, a festival, a park closure or a restaurant that just opened is out of date within days. A guidebook with dated information is worse than one without it, because guests trust the guidebook.

Most hosts handle this in one of three ways:

1. Leave it out and answer “what’s happening this weekend?” by message. This is honest, but it’s a message every stay.
2. Update a section by hand before each arrival. This works until a busy week.
3. Link to a page that keeps itself current, and keep the guidebook for what doesn’t change.

Before Around the Stay, I told guests about whatever events I’d heard of, or pointed them to the local theatre. It didn’t hold up. I didn’t always know what was happening that week, and our seasons, for bear watching and for fishing, move from year to year, so I didn’t always get them right. The live music question was the hardest: it changes every week.

The third is why I built Around the Stay. It gives each rental its own page of what’s happening nearby this week: events, markets, trail and park notices, and openings and closures, each linked to where it came from, plus the forecast. It rebuilds itself every Sunday. The link never changes, so it can go in a guidebook, a check-in message or on a printed card, and it is still right on Thursday. You can see a live one on the front page.

Where to put the guidebook itself

The best guidebook is the one guests find: a printed copy in the rental, a link in the booking confirmation, and Airbnb’s or VRBO’s own house manual, or Hostfully or Touch Stay if you use one. Whatever you choose, put the Wi-Fi and the door code where they can be found without opening anything.

Around the Stay is free during early access. See the plans or read the questions hosts ask.