You do not need a designer or an app to write a good welcome book. You need a structure and an hour. Here is a template you can copy into a note, a document, or a welcome book tool. Each section has a prompt for what to write. Keep the answers short; a guest skims, they do not read.
The template
Welcome note
Two or three sentences. Who you are, that you are glad they are here, and the one thing you most want them to know on arrival. This is the only part that should sound like a person wrote it, because a person did.
Arrival and check-in
Steps, not a paragraph. Where to park, how to get in, what to do if something goes wrong. Name the landmarks a map misses. Leave the actual door code out and send it privately close to arrival.
Wifi
Network name and password, exactly as typed, on their own line. Nothing else competes with this for most-looked-at, so give it room.
House rules
Quiet hours, pets, events, smoking, parking, trash and recycling day. One line each. Friendly and specific, not a legal wall.
How things work
A short how-to for anything that is not obvious: the coffee machine, the thermostat, the fireplace, the laundry. One appliance per note. Skip the things a guest already knows.
Where to eat and explore
Three to six places you actually like, each with a line on why and how far. This is the section guests screenshot. Curate it; a long list reads as filler.
Before you go
Checkout time and a short checklist: dishes, trash, thermostat, keys, windows. Three to five items. This is the section that saves you a message on every single stay.
Emergencies and contacts
How to reach you, the local emergency number, and where the important things are: the fuse box, the water shutoff, the fire extinguisher, the first-aid kit. You hope it is never opened, which is exactly why it should be there.
How to use it
Fill in what you can in one sitting and publish it; you can always add the appliance notes and the restaurant picks later. Then get it in front of guests with a link and a QR code rather than a PDF they have to download, so an update reaches the next guest without a reprint. Our guide to sharing your book with QR codes covers that part, and what to put in a welcome book goes deeper on each section.
FreshLinen starts a new book with these sections already in place, so the template above is roughly what you get on day one, minus the writing only you can do.