How to Be the Perfect Guest in the 21st Century
Message from your mother “Be polite!” might be enough to help you get along as a passable guest. But if you really want to shine as an exceptional and always welcome guest, you can add a couple of tricks to your travel bag.
Blast From The Past is a weekly feature on Lifehacker in which we bring old but still relevant posts to life for your reading and hacking enjoyment. This week we are preparing you for a spring and summer trip with friends.
We’ve covered how to be the perfect host in the 21st century , and now we’re back with an accompanying guide to help you hone your skills as a guest of honor. Like the hosting guide, we consider this collection of tips and tricks to be “best practice”. This is by no means the only way, and for many relationships it can sometimes be overly formal. You should adjust the tips according to your relationship with the host, your personal financial situation, and other factors affecting your visit.
On the surface, a guest’s primary responsibility may be to have fun in the first place. It is the real responsibility of the guest when staying with people outside the bed and breakfast to not burden the host. Whether you are hosted by your brother, a distant relative, or each other, your goal as a guest should be for the host to invite you back again and again.
First of all, communicate
The worst guests, aside from the ones who smash fine china and run off with your teenage daughter, are definitely bad communicators. There is no surer way to a terrible visit for the host and for you than refusing to communicate. You are a guest in someone’s home, and even if you are very welcoming to guests, you are still breaking their regular schedule and daily routine. Good communication can minimize discomfort and reduce any tension, however small, even before it occurs.
Keep your host up to date on your schedule and find out about their schedule. Once you know the information about your planned schedule, you should share it with the host. Whether you bought theater tickets months before your trip to visit a friend in Chicago, or bought them two days after arriving, keep your host informed when you arrive or will not be present. This will help your host plan meals, organize his personal affairs, and schedule time to spend with you.
If you are going to stay for extended periods of time and do some heavy travel and sightseeing, consider using a service like TripIt to track flight delays and other travel inconveniences.
You can also ask your host about her schedule. Knowing the host’s schedule goes a long way in becoming a better guest. If you know they have to get up for work very early in the morning, you probably won’t be able to schedule classes with them late at night, and you should return from your own classes as quietly as possible late at night.
You might expect to spend an entire week catching up with them, but they can be inundated with work-related emergencies. On the other hand, they might think you were going to spend the whole week like old college buddies and planned to spend the week in a whirlwind of sightseeing. It is best to clear these things up before your visit, but at the very least you should get a good idea of what your visit will look like shortly after arrival.
Report any allergies, dietary needs, or personal quirks in advance. If you have a fatal allergy to any food – peanuts, shellfish, etc. – please inform the host well in advance of your arrival. Dietary needs can be challenging. It’s up to you how uncomfortable it will be for your host to follow your dietary recommendations (if you have any). Asking a friend to make sure there is always a vegetarian-friendly meal with every meal is easy. It’s harder to ask someone to follow your strict interpretation of the vegan diet rules.
Ask about household chores. Your goal is to cause as little inconvenience as possible. Ask the host about things, such as when they usually go to bed, when the children go to bed — grief and grief over the head of the house waking up a naughty child — and other household chores. Whether you are an early riser or just a night owl, you need to make a plan for how best to enjoy your daily activities without requiring your host to sleep well and be patient.
Good communication is a great way to cheer up the host and guest. Poor communication is a very quick way to ruin a visit.
Get ready for your visit
An untrained guest at home is a terrible burden. If your host is a 21st century hosting master , they already expected you to arrive with your eyes wide open and no toothbrush. But it’s rude to expect the host to do all the work of planning the entertainment for you, providing you with toiletries, etc.
Hone your packaging skills. Use a versatile packing list or create your own reusable packing list to keep your bag filled with everything you need. While you are doing this, learn how to roll your garment to prevent wrinkling, and pack it like a pro using the wrapping method .
Make a rough route. Your host might have an absolutely awesome tour of their city, or they might be the kind of host who just take it when people show up. Do not rely on the fact that your host knows well what is happening in his city. It is very easy to relax and focus on work and daily life and forget about the cool things happening in your hometown.
Nearly all of the resources we have suggested in our hosting guide work just as well for guests doing proactive scheduling. Local search sites like Yelp are obvious, but there are many tools out there that can help you find things nearby . A guest who not only invites the host to dinner, but also introduces him to the new and delicious restaurant that was right under their nose is a guest to remember.
Spending a few minutes browsing lists of local sites and activities will not only give you something fun and local to talk to your host about, but also take the pressure off your host. Now, if your host needs to run to the office to deal with an emergency, or must attend a family event, you can throw away your planning package and have fun on your way.
Plan your own transportation. How are you going to move around? Does the city you are visiting have a developed metro or bus network? Does your owner have a spare car for you? If you are going to travel a lot in the region and beyond to see the local attractions, you may need to rent a car, or at least refuel the vehicle provided by the owner. If you need to rent a car, be sure to check out the alternatives first .
You will not stay at the hotel
Part of the luxury of staying at a hotel is that you pay to be served. The hotel staff is there to take care of you, answer all your questions, make your bed, get your property back and forth, and win the loyalty of your customers. The opposite is true when it comes to the guest outside the formal hospitality industry. When you stay with a friend, relative, or friend of a friend’s friend, you fight for loyalty. You want to be such a good guest that you can always come back. The hotel may receive a bad guest, but your previously gracious host will always find a good reason not to welcome you in the future.
The last step in star guest preparation is very similar to the basic rule of outdoor sports. Never leave a site worse than you found it.
Get out after yourself. Make up the guest bed each morning or, if the guest bed is a large air mattress in the middle of the living room, remove the guest bed and bedding. Always rinse and wash dishes or put them in the dishwasher. Do not leave toiletries spread out on the counter in the bathroom. Be proactive when helping the owner. Take out the trash when it’s full, wipe down the counters to help clear up the afternoon clutter.
When it’s time for you to leave, undress the bed, collect the dirty towels and, if you put them directly in the washing machine – not an option, at least neatly roll them all into the top sheet and put them aside. in the laundry basket or in the laundry. If the guest room has a wardrobe or fresh linens, put fresh sheets on the bed.
Cleaning after self extends to all parts of the owner’s house and includes clutter such as laptops and charging cables. Put away all your belongings when you are not using them, unless your host specifically gave you permission to turn the coffee table into a command center.
Ease the financial burden of hosting. Unless you stay with your millionaire uncle Ted, who would be deeply offended if you offered some of your meager college internship to keep the cost of your visit down, you should put some effort into it. Hosting often includes the purchase of additional food that you usually don’t buy, visits to tourist spots that you don’t usually visit, and other expenses. While most hosts are willing to pay these costs in order to spend time with you, it does not negate the cost of having a guest present.
This is a good way to somehow repay your owners. If you’re going to be staying more than a few days, consider inviting the host to shop to restock food. If you’ve eaten all of the fresh fruit or drank a whole dose of their favorite vodka, it’s best to replace whatever you’ve consumed. If you are confident that your host will turn down any offer to buy groceries or money in exchange for groceries, you have two more subtle options. You can send money prior to arrival and insist in your letter that the money be used to cover your accommodation costs, or you can leave the money with a thank you note on the dresser in the guest room or on the kitchen table. Use your intuition with each visit to figure out what is the best way to proceed.
Reward the host with a gift or a party. If you are confident that your host will be vehemently against accepting any money for hosting, your best bet is a good hosting gift and / or a good dinner. A great way to put this into perspective is to think about how much money you would spend on hotel expenses, and take some of that money and spend it on a present for the host or for a nice night out in the city.
A weeklong stay at a New York City hotel can cost you over a thousand dollars. If a friend from the Big Apple has delayed you for the same amount of time, it is hardly unwise to give a small gift or invite them to dinner. To earn extra bonus points, pay attention to what your host needs around the house. One day, the owner invited me to dinner at their favorite Mexican restaurant and comment on how much they liked the taste of freshly squeezed lime in various dishes. Before ending my visit, I bought a $ 12 juicer from a grocery store and gave them a goodbye. The gift was not expensive but very well received.
Send a letter of thanks when you get home. When you get home, send a thank you note to the host for their hospitality. Focus on one or two things that really stood out in their reception – being attentive to getting your favorite breakfast treats, having tickets to your favorite Broadway show, and so on. the two of you enjoy city life or the snapshots you took on your day-to-day adventures while the owner was at work.
Not every situation is formal enough to merit canceling all super-guest stops, and you will vary your schedule depending on whether you are staying with your family, your best friend, or a friend of a friend’s who owes you a barber service. However, if you use even some of the tips and tricks above, you will be the guest of your dreams.
Now that you’ve read our Guide to Star Guest Status, share your own opinions and guest best practices in the comments – and share your horror stories!