A Welcome Box for Guests
Like many of our wonderful hosts, GA Gypsies are popular because of who they are but also becasue of where they are.
Their Georgia home is just a few miles from I-75 so it's a convenient stop for Snowbirds heading south to Florida or on their way back north in the spring. As BW hosts, they get more than their fair share of requests from guests. We know they love hosting but they also have a life of their own, so they can't always be available to spend as much time as they'd like with each and every guest.
The Welcome Box
That's why GAGypsies have taken a special step to ensure their guests feel welcome; it also helps to make things a bit easier for themselves. They created a "Welcome Kit" – a waterproof plastic bin – that they place in the area where guest RVers are parked.
The kit is filled with brochures of local attractions but also contains a letter with important information.
They've generously agreed to let us create a template that you can use to create your own similar letter.
Download a Word document that you can customize for your own host location here, or see a PDF example here.
Lancer's Tips for a Great Stay
Another host, Lancer, lives in western Idaho near the Washington state line.
Theirs is a popular stop during the summer months. They came up with a similar idea – a one page information sheet that they titled, "Tips for A Great Stay". It has a slightly different bent to it than the one above and they prefer to hand it directly to guests to be sure they don't miss reading it. Here is their version – again we've adapted it to serve as a template you can edit to suit your own needs.
Download a Word document that you can customize for your own host location here, or see a PDF example here.
Other Considerations and Tips
Although this type of letter isn't, of course, necessary, it could certainly be a helpful communication tool to ensure there's no misundestanding. Guests are often tired after a long day of driving and may not remember all your oral instructions or all the information you had on your web site profile. And, certainly guests from non-English-speaking countries will appreicate a written document that they can study at their leisure.
A few hosts have told us that they have a special guest book for BW guests. If you like that idea, you could leave it in the Welcome Box too, or consider handing it to the guest upon thier arrival. They may enjoy reading the entries from previous guests and this gives them a chance to put some thought into their own comments.
Many hosts like to take a photo of their guests in front of their RV. They might even print and add the picutres to the guest book. For hosts who have many guests in a season, these little steps are often a helpful reminder of the visit and the guests – especially when they look back at their messages months later but don't recognize guests by their user name.
We hope these suggestions will prove helpful to some of you as hosts. Perhaps you have your own unique ways of sharing information with guests and making their visit memorable for them and for yourselves. If so, we'd love to hear about it. Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.
Learn More About Boondockers Welcome
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We have been using a Welcome notebook stuffed with local stuff. Local restaurants, attractions, hospitals, churches, our house rules and our fav…. Don’t pet the cactus…..and don’t try to herd the scorpions…
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