A visitor survival guide for hosts

Do you have lots of visitors? Maybe you live in a gorgeous beachside town or in the middle of an expensive city. Maybe you live interstate from a large contingent of keen traveller family and friends. Maybe you’re just immensely popular!

Visitors are wonderful – they bring their holiday spirit and their unique personalities into your world. They can also be hard work – they bring their kids (and sometimes their dogs) and they bring baggage – literal and emotional.

Here are nine tips to help you maximise your enjoyment of the next lot of visitors to check in to your house.

1. Decide whether you are also on holiday

Sometimes you can be on holiday (albeit in your own home) along with your visitors. If this is the case, you can happily share their sleep-ins, lazy brunches and late-night wine-fuelled conversations. Other times you need to continue working and you’ll need to lead a double life for the duration of their visit. This is particularly challenging if you work flexibly or from home, as days will slide by unless you pre-plan your work times.

2. Check for crucial deadlines before they arrive

There is nothing worse than waving your visitors goodbye then discovering that you’ve forgotten a credit card payment or missed a long-ago booked medical appointment. Visitors, by their very nature, put you out of routine, so set yourself extra reminders about non-negotiables.

3. Allow them to explore

You might know your local area well and have lots of ideas about what your visitors can do during their stay. Part of a holiday is exploring, so let their fingers do the walking before they head your way, or direct them to the nearest tourist info centre when they arrive. Collect tourist brochures and recent local papers to give to your visitors when they arrive. You might discover something new too.

4. You are not a tour guide

You may be completely happy to explore new sights with your visitors or revisit well-stomped ground in their company. But, just because you did the Harbour Bridge climb with your first lot of visitors doesn’t mean you have to repeat this expensive, strenuous and fear-of-heights taxing activity with every set of visitors to come your way. Cheerily send them on their way – promising, of course, to “enjoy” their photos afterwards!

5. Clean before and after, not during

We all like our houses to look good for visitors, so feel free to go all out and do a big clean before they arrive. If they’re staying for a week or less, simply allow the house to get grotty over their stay and sort it out when they’ve left. If they’re staying for longer than that, agree to split the cost of a cleaner or simply hand them a broom before arming yourself with the toilet brush!

6. If you need them to contribute, find a way to let them know

This is a tricky one that is nice to avoid if you are able to comfortably absorb food, transport and other costs that are an inevitable part of visitor life. If funds are tight though, get creative. There will always be some visitors who you can directly ask to contribute, and others who will start the discussion or push money into your hand. Less-direct tactics include suggesting that they shop for dinner one night, or pulling into a petrol station during the drive to the airport.

7. Downtime

The practical aspects of planning visits and making sure everyone is happy / fed / occupied / sane is a big and potentially tiring job. Don’t forget that downtime is part of a holiday for your visitors so don’t feel guilty about them wallowing in front of the TV, bingeing on Facebook updates or simply staring into space. It is a rare visitor that needs your undivided attention, so allow yourself some downtime (which may include alone time) too.

8. Know thy visitor

Each visitor is different. Some are there to use your house as a base to explore, others are there to see as much of you as possible. Some have unlimited funds, where others will be counting their holiday pennies. A less obvious difference is planning – some visitors need a detailed itinerary drawn up before they arrive, others will far prefer winging it on the day. It’s not your job to cater to their every whim, but thinking about what type of visitor you have can minimise stress for all.

9. Know your limits

It’s fine to be the host with the most but not if this exhausts you or brings you to breaking point. Can you cope with visitors who stay for three days or two weeks? Do you need a break between sets of visitors or do you prefer everyone to overlap for one full-on stint? Is it OK for them to stay in your house but not rely on your car for transport? Is it important for you keep up your exercise routine or get to bed before midnight? Even if you’re unsure what your answers to these questions are, you’ll certainly know when your limits have been exceeded – file this information away for future visit planning.

Happy holidays to your visitors and happy visitor-hosting to you!

Vivienne Pearson is a freelance writer who, thanks to a recent sea change, has had six groups of visitors staying with her for a total of six of the past eight weeks. She considers this fair recompense for the considerable number of past holidays when she’s stayed with family and friends.