You've been invited to spend time with friends or family but from your own experiences you know only too well just how difficult it can be to have guests stay in your home.
While it's true that guests will always cause a certain amount of disturbance to a family's routine there are steps you can take to help ensure that your visit is a pleasant experience for all concerned.
Follow the tips below and you'll be well on your way to an enjoyable and successful visit with a host family that will happily invite you to stay as a house guest in their home again.
Take A Gift
Although this isn't something that will make a difference as to how well you adapt to the family's routines, it will show your gratitude at being invited into their home.
However, buying a personal gift is rarely easy but when the gift is for an entire family, the task becomes even trickier. Flowers are always the safest bet. Take a shop bought bouquet if you prefer but flowers picked from your own garden make a beautiful, personal gift and can be displayed in any room of the house. Houseplants make nice gifts, too, but please remember to buy an attractive pot cover to go with it.
Avoid ornaments and other objects that will need to be displayed. Unless you know the family's taste very, very well, anything along these lines could be disastrous. What's worse than having to display an ornament that you would otherwise have donated to your local charity sale or hidden in the attic in a box that'll probably never be opened?
The only exception to the above would be if the family collect a specific type of item and you know for certain that they don't mind others choosing pieces to add to the collection.We, for instance, collect fridge magnets but only those from places we've visited. Fridge magnets given as gifts wouldn't necessarily be welcomed. On the other hand, we also collect blue and white crockery and would be over the moon if somebody gave us a piece as a gift.
Whatever you do, don't go overboard. There's no need to buy a gift for each family member -- that'll just give the impression that you're trying to hard. However, having said that, a small toy or similar for each of the children wouldn't hurt but don't buy anything too expensive.