Two questions every Staykey host has asked us at some point.
"Where do I put the photos?" Previous answer: "Mmm, you don't, really. Sorry."
"Can I add a list of places to recommend to my guests?" Previous answer: "Not yet."
Today, both of those answers change.
Photos
Every property has them. Staykey didn't have anywhere to keep them. That was, uh, a gap.
The new Photos setting is a drag-and-drop grid. Drop in JPEG, PNG, or WebP files (up to 10 MB each). Reorder by dragging tiles around — whatever's first is the property's primary image. Click the little star on a tile to mark it as the cover photo, the one Staykey treats as the property's representative image. Hit the × to remove one (no "are you sure?" dialog — we trust you).
A local guide
You know the bakery you tell every guest about? The one with the cardamom buns that disappear by 9am? That bakery now has a home.
The new Local guide is a list of places you recommend at each property — coffee in the morning, the dinner spot, the trailhead, the grocery store that's open late.
Two things we wanted to nail:
- Search instead of type. There's a Google Places search bar at the top of the editor. Start typing — "goldfin…" — pick the result, and we pull in the name, address, lat/long, hours, photo, and a category hint. You add the personal note ("their cardamom buns disappear by 9am") and you're done.
- Categories that mean something. Every place lands in one of four buckets: Coffee & breakfast, Dinner, Groceries, Hikes & parks. We try to pick the right one based on the Google place type. If we get it wrong, override. If you want a custom category — "Date night," "Dog-friendly patios," whatever — go for it.
There's also a Sparkles button at the top of the editor that seeds the guide from the property's address, in case you'd rather start with a short list of well-rated nearby places and edit from there. (We promise to never use the word "AI" to describe this.)
And while we were in there…
The old property settings page was — if we're being honest with each other — a long stack of cards with Edit buttons that opened dialogs that made you scroll-click-modal-click-scroll-click your way through anything. We knew. You knew. Everyone knew.
The new one has a sidebar of categories on the left, the editor in the middle, and a pending-changes panel on the right. Change three things across three different settings, save them in one go. Status dots in the sidebar tell you what's incomplete before a guest does. It's quieter. It's nicer. Your Sunday morning thanks us.
A few more things in the oven, including some work on the guest side that puts all those new photos to actual use. Soon-ish.
In the meantime: open Staykey, drop some photos in, pick five places you'd send a friend to. We think you'll like it.
Related reading
- Post: Why we rebuilt the guest portal around one link — the principle behind everything you build in property settings.
- Help: Setting up your first property — a top-to-bottom walkthrough of the new settings page.
- Guide: How to send check-in instructions that actually get read — the rich-text editor in property settings is where those instructions are now authored.