A great local guide turns a property into an experience. Here's how to write one that guests genuinely use — and mention in their five-star reviews.
Almost every holiday rental has a local area guide of some kind. It might be a ring-binder on the kitchen shelf, a PDF attached to the booking confirmation, or a shared Google Doc with a link in the welcome message. Most of them have one thing in common: nobody reads them.
The typical local guide is a list of names and addresses — restaurants, attractions, emergency contacts — compiled without context, enthusiasm, or any real sense of local knowledge. It's the kind of document that could have been written by someone who has never visited the area.
The result is that guests either ignore it entirely and default to Google, or they use it for the bare logistics (nearest supermarket, bin day) and miss the genuine value that a host with local knowledge could provide.
A great local guide is different. It reads like a recommendation from a trusted friend. It tells guests not just what exists but what's worth their time, what's overrated, and what they'd never find on their own. It becomes a reference guests return to throughout their stay — and the source of the experience they describe in their five-star review.
Here's how to create one.
Anyone can Google "restaurants near [place name]." What guests can't Google is your recommendation — the specific dish at the specific restaurant, the time of day to arrive to get a table, the fact that the kitchen closes early on Sundays, the view from the window table at dusk.
That insider knowledge is the value you offer. Your local guide should be full of it.
Every recommendation should answer the questions a guest would ask if they were sitting across from you:
If you can answer those questions in a sentence or two, your recommendation has moved from a listing to a genuine guide.
A well-organised guide is easier to navigate and feels more credible. Here's a structure that works for most UK and European holiday rentals.
Before guests can use your recommendations, they need to understand the geography. A short orienting paragraph and a simple map or sketch (even hand-drawn) helps guests understand:
This is almost always the most-used section of a local guide. Give it the most space and the most detail.
Include:
How to write a restaurant recommendation that guests will use:
Bad: "The Anchor — seafood restaurant. Good food."
Good: "The Anchor (The Quay, 01326 xxxxxx) — our go-to for a proper meal out. The grilled sea bass is the best version we've eaten anywhere, and they almost always have local crab when it's in season. It gets booked up fast on summer weekends so reserve a table a few days ahead. Ask for a window seat — the view of the harbour at sunset is something else."
The second version tells a guest everything they need to make a decision and get the best out of the experience. It's the same information a friend would share over dinner.
Organise this by activity type rather than as an undifferentiated list:
Walks
For families
For couples
For dog owners
Culture and history
This section is less exciting but consistently used:
This is the section that makes your guide feel personal and living, rather than generic and static.
Update this seasonally with:
Even a brief seasonal note ("If you're visiting in September, the harbour festival is the last weekend of the month and is genuinely wonderful") communicates that the guide is written by someone who knows and loves the place.
A guide written in corporate hospitality language — "guests may wish to experience the local gastronomic offer" — reads like it was written by a marketing department. Write as you'd talk.
Don't recommend every restaurant in the area. If there are three restaurants within walking distance and one of them is excellent and two are mediocre, say so (diplomatically). "For a quick lunch [Restaurant X] is nearby and convenient — but for a real meal out, [Restaurant Y] is worth the ten-minute drive." Honest recommendations are trusted. Recommendations that praise everything are trusted by nobody.
A ten-page local guide is not a gift — it's homework. Each section should be useful and scannable. Aim for three to five recommendations per category with a short paragraph each, rather than fifteen listings with just a name and address.
For the property guide left at the property, a clean printed format works well:
A digital guide sent 48 hours before arrival lets guests start planning and is searchable during the stay. Options:
The digital guide is particularly valuable for guests who want to research before they arrive, and for recommendations that require booking — they can call or book from their phone while still in the car.
A single photo of the view from the best local walk, or of a particularly photogenic pub or beach, transforms a dry list into something that genuinely excites guests. These don't need to be professional photos — good phone photography is fine.
Restaurants close. Opening hours change. The farm shop that was a gem in 2023 changed hands and is now mediocre. A new bakery opened last summer that's become a local institution.
Schedule a review of your local guide every quarter. Things to check:
An out-of-date guide is worse than no guide — it creates wasted journeys and disappointed guests who followed a recommendation to a shuttered restaurant.
Almost no local guide includes this, and it's the one most often mentioned in reviews: the honest local insider tip.
This is the thing that only people who know the area would know:
This kind of recommendation is the one guests talk about. It's the reason they mention the host by name in their review. It's worth including even if — especially if — it's just one thing.
LetPilot's check-in guide feature lets you build and share your local area guide digitally, update it in real time, and send it automatically to every guest before their stay — so your local knowledge reaches every visitor without any additional effort on your part. Try LetPilot free at letpilot.co — no credit card required.