By: Stephanie Reynolds
It’s summer travel season! The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the road (and family) is calling our name.
This is prime “travel to visit grandma/auntie/college roommate” time. And of course we are always reasonable, our children are always well behaved…we are the easiest, most amenable guests ever, am I right?
But we want to make sure our visit is a delight for the folk we’re staying with, not just for us. We want to hear “Awww! Can’t you stay longer?” instead of “Hate-to-see-you-go-here’s-your-hat.”
Here are a few tips to be such an incredible house guest that they secretly want to add a wing to their house for you to move into. (Ok, they probably won’ go that far…but they might).
1. Understand that they LOVE you but that doesn’t make having a houseguest any easier. Those are two COMPLETELY SEPARATE things.
Let me say that again: Their love for us and the strain of having guests in the house are two VERY DIFFERENT THINGS. It isn’t personal. It is just hard to have a routine changed, to have to budget for extra groceries, to not be able to wake up or go to sleep or do the things you always do out of consideration for your guests.
So if the person you’re visiting acts like your visit is difficult for them, it is because it honestly is. Again, it isn’t YOU (unless you’re being ugly, but I know you aren’t), it is change. Change is often the enemy. So please be patient and don’t take it personally.
2. Consider staying only 2-3 days max at one house. This is especially true if the people you are going to visit are older, if they are introverted, if you have very active kids, or if you are visiting your grown children (especially with new daughters-in-law or if there is a new baby). Be mindful that while they love you, almost any guest is stressful. A whole family is even more so.
3. If you have kids or are super active people, remember that the people you are visiting may not be used to the level of noise or activity. Take the kids out to run off steam. Give them ample activities or resort to letting them use electronic devices (desperate times, folks, desperate times). Enforce company manners strictly—it is much better for your host to say to you, “Oh just let them be kids, it’s fine!” than for them to mutter behind closed doors, “Those kids are heathens! When are they leaving?”
4. Likewise, if you are an introvert and the people you are visiting are eager to show you all the things all the time, remember that they are pouring out to you what they love. They are treating you how they would like to be treated (and that 3-day visit limit is great). You can be open with, “That drive made me so tired! But I can’t wait to see what we can do tomorrow!” or “You know what I have been longing to do since we planned this trip? Just sit on the porch and hear you talk. I have missed your voice.”
5. Establish any dietary needs WAY ahead of time. And it’s on YOU. Remember how long it took to learn all the pitfalls of various allergies, etc. and how hard it was to make sure you were doing everything right? So don’t expect your hosts with no food allergies to suddenly spool up on the synonyms for “gluten.” Firstly, it isn’t very wise to trust severe allergies to someone else.
Secondly, if they love you (and they don’t want to kill anyone or make them sick) they will be freaking out the whole time, “What if I missed something? We had peanuts at Christmas and I washed the counter at least twice since then but what if there was peanut dust? What if there was flour on the conveyor belt and it got on the
produce bag and then some fell into the stem area of the apples and I washed but not enough and Bobby eats the apple and gets terribly sick?? What if they die because I forgot something?!” It seems extreme, but, again, remember how freaked out you were to do everything right at the diagnosis.
Thirdly, specific eating is expensive eating. They will have to buy a box of x-y-z that they never eat or don’t even like and will only use one cup of while you are there. Traveling with dietary restrictions is hard for us but also hard for our hosts.
So try this: In the SAME conversation where you have talked about coming to their house, say: “You are such an amazing cook, but Bobby has severe allergies and Joe is diabetic. I don’t want you wasting time or money with what we can’t eat. We will bring our own food and here are a list of places we can eat at if we want to go out. That way no one has to stress. Don’t worry, this is what we do everywhere we go.” That is the gracious and SAFE thing for everyone. Food is a love language for many, but not the only love language!
So there is our first set of ideas for being a GREAT houseguest. Stay tuned for more!
By: Stephanie Reynolds, Athens-Limestone Tourism Association
June 6, 2025
