How to make a visitor guide people use

1. Put the numbers before the words

Good: a paragraph that describes the walk.

Great: a box first, then the words. Time, cost, effort, what to bring.

In magazines: a workshop project opens with Total Time, Complexity and Cost, then a tools list and a materials list (Family Handyman). Backpacker's Wonderland Trail guide leads with a stats box: distance, total climb, daily gain, difficulty, dogs (Backpacker). Make's page for a clock kit prints a Time Required line and a materials box before the first step (Make).

For a town guide: four lines at the top of every walk, drive, paddle and museum: Time, Cost, Effort, Bring. The reader decides in five seconds, and looks for the same box on every page.

2. Build it in three parts

Good: stories, listings and ads mixed through the book.

Great: a fast front, a slow middle, a reference back, and one editorial page before the closing ads.

In magazines: the front of the book is short items in the magazine's own voice; a journalism school calls it the fast, voice driven section every magazine uses to set its personality (NYU). The middle is the long pieces, each opening on a page that is mostly picture: two in the thin issues we read, six or seven in the thick ones. The back is the pages a reader returns to: listings, maps, the calendar, the service section. All four issues we read keep to it, and three end on one editorial page before the closing ads: Lufthansa on a travel photo with a getting there box, and Popular Mechanics on the Last Page it lists among its monthly pages. A trade article describes that back page as a one page essay of humor, opinion or information, often a recurring column (WritersWeekly).

For a town guide: open with two to four pages of short items in the town's voice (new this year, five things locals know). Put two or three long pieces in the middle. Close with one labelled reference section: map, listings, hours, calendar. Do not scatter listings between stories. End on one photo of the town and a line from a local, or a page to write on, with the ad on the cover behind it. Wisconsin's page 24 is the middle done right: a long piece that opens on a page built around its title and one photo.

3. One page that says who made it, when, and where to write

Good: a list of sections, and an unsigned welcome from "the team".

Great: a contents page that sells and signs: every section with a page number, the two best pictures with theirs, the recurring pages grouped apart, who made it and when, and an email for corrections.

In magazines: the Conservationist puts its masthead on the contents page: the director, the staff by role, the cover photographer, the subscription terms. The editor's letter has six possible jobs, and the simplest is a meet and greet that walks through the issue (Press Gazette). Ads beside a contents page were noted by 59 percent of readers, against 51 percent beside editorial and 46 beside other ads, in Starch ad surveys of 68,000 ads (GfK MRI, 2010; MediaPost corrected its headline and the survey name the next day). Vendor data.

For a town guide: one page that does four jobs: every section with a page number, the two best pictures with page numbers, half a page from the person who runs the visitor center with a name and an email for corrections, and who made the guide and when. Check every page number against the final proof. We did not find a visitor guide that groups its recurring pages on its contents page, though we did not read every contents page. Ventura comes closest: named staff, each answering one question, beside the staff list. A text search of 52 guides found named writers in two, and our readers noticed a few more. In about half of the 138 guides we read, no resident, maker or owner is profiled or quoted by name.

4. The same box on every entry

Good: every entry written fresh.

Great: a fixed name, slot and box for every page that comes back, so a reader who learns it once reads every entry faster.

In magazines: Consumer Reports prints the same ratings table for every product in its buying guide: brand and model, overall score, price, survey results, test results, then the features, in that order on every page, with the key explained once at the front. A reader who learns the table on page 5 reads every table after it (Consumer Reports Buying Guide 2021, printed pages 5 and 22).

For a town guide: three or four pages that return every edition in the same place with the same name, and one box on every place entry: how to get there, hours, cost, what to do, what to look for, who to call. The office can update a box without rewriting a page. Trumbull's Local Trip Idea pages come back through the guide with the same stamp, a named local, a checklist and a caption on every photo. 4 of 52 have a new this year section, one of them only on its dining pages. A text search misses words set inside a picture, so this is the least there could be.

5. Say who checked it, and when

Good: "a charming cafe loved by locals".

Great: who tried it, when, and why it works, in two sentences.

In magazines: a Cook's Illustrated recipe opens with Time and Yield, then "Why This Recipe Works". Its publisher says each recipe goes through at least six weeks of testing, and that the magazine carries no advertising (America's Test Kitchen, its standards page). Those are the publisher's own descriptions of its method.

For a town guide: a dated line on every entry, "Checked March 2027", and two sentences of "Why locals go" that say something only a local would know. We did not find a guide that prints a checked on date. The nearest thing is a named local's picks with her reasons, as on card 4.

6. Pick, and print how you picked

Good: a list of every restaurant, all treated the same.

Great: three labelled picks for each decision, a method line, and one honest catch per pick.

In magazines: Wirecutter's guides carry fixed labels (Top pick, Budget pick, Upgrade pick) and a "How we picked" box; it says those sections exist so a reader can see who wrote it and how it was tested (Wirecutter). Time Out prints "How we choose" on its best restaurants list and the reviewer's face on each review (Time Out). Michelin's inspectors pay their own bills and visit more than once (Michelin). Car and Driver's 10Best prints its rules: every contender driven back to back on the same roads, a price cap, 20 evaluators (Car and Driver).

For a town guide: for the five decisions every visitor makes (where to sleep, dinner, coffee, a rainy afternoon, a half day with kids), print Our pick, Budget pick and Upgrade pick, each with the price, the reason and the catch. Above them, one line: who chose, how, and whether anyone paid. The USE-IT map of Esch, Luxembourg, is the one visitor guide we read that prints such a line: it names its authors and says nobody paid to be on it. Its notice bars reuse, so we link to it rather than show it. If you have members, keep a fair listing for everyone and put the picks under a named person.

7. One perfect day, written out

Good: a things to do section, or one "48 hours" page.

Great: a day told in order, every stop named, with a reason at each stop and the time it takes.

In magazines: United's Hemispheres runs Three Perfect Days: a card per day at the top saying what the day is about, then each day from breakfast to a nightcap with the places in bold. It does not print the time each stop takes; that part is our advice.

For a town guide: a One Perfect Day page, and Three Perfect Days if the town can carry it, one version per audience if there is room. Posey County has the shape: a three day weekend by morning, afternoon and evening, with named stops. It lacks the times, and its reasons are one clause each.

8. Draw the walk, start to end

Good: one overview map with dots.

Great: the route drawn on the map, numbered stops, a start and an end, and the time each stop takes.

In guidebooks: Rick Steves' walks are drawn on the street map with numbered stops, a Tour Begins mark and a Tour Ends mark, and the stop list under the map. Lonely Planet's Experience series prints a trip builder: a map with each stop's page number and the time to allow for it, from one hour to a day (Lonely Planet, sample pages). None of the pages we read prints minutes between stops.

For a town guide: one self guided walk drawn on the map with numbered stops, a start and an end, and the time to allow at each stop. Garrett County numbers its stops on a street map and marks the info kiosk as the start, with no route line and no end, so Rick Steves is the one to copy.

9. Credit every photo like a fashion page

Good: a lovely photo with no words.

Great: under every photo, what it is, where it is, what it costs and when it is open.

In magazines: a fashion page prints the item, the price and where to buy under every photo, says an editor chose it, and names the editors in the pictures. That is the whole reason the page exists. We read this on a Bazaar web page; no print fashion spread was open to us.

For a town guide: a credit line under every photo: the place, the street, the map number, the cost, the hours. A photo without one is decoration. With one, it sells a stop. Faroe keys every photo to a map number and a page; nobody we read prints a price under a photo.

10. Treat ads the way magazines do

Good: ads wherever they fit, and a paid write up that reads like a story.

Great: ads between pieces, the word "Advertisement" on every paid page, and a price ladder that matches where readers look.

In magazines: Omaha prints "Sponsored Content" above the first page of its paid dining guide, and only there; the five pages after it carry the section name alone, and its ads sit between the listings, not inside a story. So the magazine does not label every paid page, and the advice rests on the rule, not on it: the Federal Trade Commission says a paid page that could pass for a story needs a word such as "Advertisement" above the headline; it calls "Promoted" ambiguous, and warns that "Presented by" and "Sponsored by" can read as paid for but not written by the sponsor (FTC, 2015). Texas Highways' public rate card says it sells no adjacencies: a business in a story gets no ad near it (Texas Highways).

For a town guide: put ads between pieces and in the reference section, not inside a story. About one in five of the guides with ads put one inside a story or on an article page. Our readers' notes give examples, not a full list, so there may be more. Print "Advertisement" at the top of any paid page that reads like one, the same word everywhere, on every page of a paid section. Charge for the covers and the page facing the contents, and leave the right hand page off the price list. We are not lawyers; have your own counsel check your labels.

11. Built for the lobby rack

Good: a guide built as if one person reads it once, from the front.

Great: a guide built for many readers, in short sittings, from any page, over months, by people who may not read the page at all.

For a town guide: a rack copy is read standing up, in a lobby, by one visitor after another, for months. So the must knows land in a five minute flip, every dated page carries its month, and the guide does not get padded: in a 2003 study of 100 magazines done for the publishers' and editors' associations, page count was not a driver of the reader's experience (MediaPost on Northwestern's study). And make sure everyone can use it: a web page first, a PDF a screen reader can read, and access as a feature, as West Virginia does.