Most arrival instructions are written like this:
"When you arrive, park in the driveway on the right side of the house (not the left, that's the neighbor's), then walk up the stone path to the front door, and you'll see a lockbox on the railing — the code is 4471, and once you're inside, the light switches are to the left of the door, and the WiFi password is on the fridge."
That's one sentence. It's also five separate physical actions, a warning, a code, and a location for a password, all fused together. A guest standing in the dark, holding a phone, a suitcase, and maybe a kid's hand, cannot hold that sentence in their head. They'll read it once, retain about 20%, get to the driveway, forget whether it was left or right, and text you.
The fix isn't better prose. It's no prose. Arrival instructions should read like a list of moments, each one small enough to complete before looking at the phone again.
Write it as a sequence a guest can execute one line at a time
Here's the same information broken into steps:
- Turn into the driveway on the right side of the house. (Left driveway belongs to the neighbor.)
- Park facing the garage door.
- Walk up the stone path to the front door.
- Lockbox is on the railing to the right of the door. Code: 4471.
- Push the door open — it sticks, so lean into it.
- Light switch is immediately to your left, waist height.
- WiFi password is on a card taped to the fridge.
Seven lines. None of them require memory. A guest reads line 1, does it, glances up, reads line 2, does it. They never have to hold two instructions in their head at once, and they never have to reread a paragraph to find the one clause that matters right now.
This is the whole trick: match the instruction to the action, one to one. If there are two physical things happening — park, then walk — that's two lines, not one connected by "and."
The test: could someone follow this without reading ahead
A good way to check your own instructions is to imagine reading them out loud to someone who is currently doing the thing, in real time, like a copilot. You wouldn't say "proceed to the entrance, where you will locate a keypad affixed to the doorframe, and input the four-digit code provided below." You'd say "walk up to the door — see the keypad? — punch in 4471."
Write it the second way. Drop "please," drop "you will," drop "kindly note." Every word that isn't an action or a fact is a word between the guest and the door.
Bad: "Please be advised that upon your arrival, you should proceed around the back of the property, as the front entrance is currently not in use due to renovation work."
Better:
- Front door is out of use (renovation).
- Go around the back of the house.
- Back door is unlocked.
Same facts. Half the words. Zero chance of misreading at midnight.
Order matters more than completeness
A common mistake is writing instructions in the order you thought of them, not the order the guest will need them. Parking is usually first because it's physically first, but hosts often bury it under a welcome paragraph and a note about the cleaning fee. If a guest is circling the block looking for parking, "we're so glad you're staying with us" is not the sentence they need to see first.
Put the steps in the exact order a body moves through them:
- Where to stop the car.
- How to get from the car to the door.
- How to open the door.
- What to do once inside (lights, thermostat, WiFi).
- Where to find anything urgent (extra blankets, bathroom, kitchen).
Save the friendly welcome note for after step 5, or better, send it as a separate message earlier in the day. Nobody wants a paragraph of hospitality standing between them and a light switch.
Name the physical landmark, not the abstract direction
"Turn left" means nothing to someone who doesn't know which way they're facing. "Turn left at the mailbox with the blue flag" means something because it's anchored to an object they can actually see with a flashlight or a phone screen. Every step should reference something physical and visible in low light: a railing, a doormat, a porch light, a specific tree, a house number painted on a curb.
Compare:
"The entrance is around the side."
vs.
"Walk past the recycling bins to the side gate. The gate is unlocked — just lift the latch."
The second version works at night because "recycling bins" and "lift the latch" are things a hand and a flashlight can find. "Around the side" is not.
Split the message so guests aren't scrolling to find one line
Even a perfectly sequenced list fails if it's buried under check-in policies, cancellation terms, and a paragraph about the neighborhood. If your arrival message is 400 words and the door code is line 380, you've built the same problem back in through the side door.
Keep the arrival sequence as its own short block — nothing else in that message. Send the neighborhood tips, restaurant recommendations, and house history separately, ideally earlier, when the guest is still at the airport and has attention to spare. At 11pm outside the door, they need seven lines, not seventy.
A short version for the door itself
Whatever you send digitally, it's worth also taping a physical version by the door for anyone whose phone dies mid-arrival. It doesn't need to be pretty — a laminated index card with the same numbered steps, in the same order, works fine. If you're using something like TouchGuides, this is one of the few places worth generating a printable version alongside the digital one, so the sequence exists in both places without you having to write it twice.
The underlying idea is simple: a tired person in the dark doesn't need to be told a story about how to get into your house. They need a list they can execute one line at a time, in the order their body actually moves. Write it that way and the 11pm "which way is the driveway" text mostly disappears on its own.