As you may already know, I’m currently on an 18 day trip in Europe. I have had some great experiences while visiting family. Unfortunately, to go along with the great experiences I have had quite a few not so great experiences. Visiting family across hundreds of miles can be a very interesting experience. Some people live in not so good conditions and don’t exactly have lots of disposable income. Surprisingly some of these relatives ended up being great hosts. The negative part of the vacation is that some relatives were not exactly the greatest hosts. Today I want to discuss what goes into being a great host when you are tight on money.
Provide the guests with their own space
Hopefully you thought this through prior to inviting your guests: make sure you have a space for them to stay. If not then simply apologize and don’t have them stay with you. If you choose to have people stay with you ensure that they have somewhere comfortable to sleep.
Do not invade their space
Even though it may be your own home it’s inappropriate to be intruding on the guests. If you prepare a bed for someone don’t go jumping on it or don’t go barging in the room in the middle of the night because you forgot something or because you feel like it.
Keep your place clean and tidy
There is nothing worse than arriving at a filthy home because it is not welcoming at all. It’s one thing if you have a few pieces of clothing laying around here or there but dirty dishes and a disgusting washroom is unacceptable. There is pretty much no cost associated with cleaning your home other than time.
Have some stuff planned
Yes “stuff” does sound general but you guys get the point- have something planned. You know your own area better than the guests do so arrange to have something to do for the duration of the visit. Realistically if your guests are college students they will want to spend their evenings having drinks over conversation. Since your tight on your finances, you can easily find out which bars/restaurants in your area have the cheapest drinks. Just don’t bring your guests to a sketchy party of town to save a few bucks on drinks.
Arrange washroom times
If you only have one washroom in your place then set up a rough schedule. By rough I mean notify the guests that you will shower in the mornings and they can shower at night time. Or you can tell the guests that you want to use the facilities before 8 in the morning and they can use them after 8. Believe me you really want to avoid having 4 people fighting to use the bathroom facilities at the same time.
Prepare food that only you will enjoy
There is certain food that I eat that no one with any sort of taste buds will even touch. As a result I would never prepare this food for anyone else. Unfortunately some people don’t feel this way and they don’t realize that their guests may have different eating habits. Find out ahead of time what kind of food your guests eat and try your best to prepare it for them so that they feel more “at home.”
These tips have all come from the top of my head while I grabbed a piece of pen and paper to write my thoughts during a horrible visit with certain relatives. Anyways, I’m curious if there are any tips that I may have missed? Any guest/host stories to share?