PetsCareMart

I rarely travel without my Dachshunds Summit and Gretel.

I’ve taken them on a 4,000 mile road trip from Seattle, Washington to Phoenix, Arizona.

I took them on a “tour” along the west coast in April 2022, driving over 3,000 miles and holding several Dachshund meetups along the way.

UPDTATED: Article originally published August 2014.

I drove to Colorado with them to climb the highest 14er in the state – Mt. Elbert.

I flew to New York City with my Dachshund Gretel twice.

Needless to say, I travel a lot with my dogs, which means I’ve also spend thousands of hours online planning our dog friendly vacations.

I thought I would share some of my favorite resources I use to plan our dog friendly travel itineraries.

I use these resource regularly to search for dog friendly hotels, dog friendly campgrounds, dog friendly restaurants; and dog friendly trails.

Planning a Dog Friendly Road Trip

When planning a dog friendly road trip, the first thing I do is use Google Maps to calculate driving times and find approximate stopping points.

For example, I only want to drive 8 hours the first day, because that is be about 11 total hours on the road with breaks, I keep picking destinations along our route and plugging them into the map until I find one that is about 12 hours from Seattle.

I keep doing this until I’ve estimated all of the stops between our start and finish destinations.

I like to choose my own stop locations and frequency, so I look along the chosen route for dog friendly campgrounds, fun things to see, and places to visit (like National Parks I can enjoy with my dog).

I may adjust my previously determined stops based on stops I want to make along the way and how long I want to spend at these stops.

Finding Dog Friendly Hotels

If I want to stay in hotels when we travel, there are several ways that I find them.

The PetsWelcome dog road trip planner is helpful when looking for dog friendly hotels along a driving route

The road trip planner is Google map based so it looks and feels familiar to most people.

You can enter your starting destination, final destination, and set your search parameters for hotels (distance from your route and distance apart along the route).

If I am not driving and merely want to see hotels near our final destination, or I want to see additional choices not returned by the PetsWelcome trip planner, I use the Bring Fido Website.

It’s like Expedia for dog friendly hotels.

You can view all dog friendly hotels in a city as well as estimated rates, descriptions, reviews, and usually pet policy information.

You can book a hotel, and a competitive rate, right on the site.

This is, by far, the most comprehensive, easy-to-use website I have used for locating and booking dog friendly hotels.

Finding Dog Friendly Restaurants

I like to search the Go Pet Friendly Destination Guides first when looking for places I can eat with my dog.

The destination guides are like personal reviews on a specific location.

I like seeing the pictures and hearing the stories from actual humans instead of marketing mumbo-jumbo off of a website.

Whether I find a destination guide for the city I am visiting or not, the next places I look are the Go Pet Friendly travel search and the Bring Fido dog friendly city directory.

Between those two resources I usually find all of the dog friendly restaurants in an area.

Sometimes I will do a little extra checking for restaurants on Dog Friendly.com.

Finding Dog Friendly Trails

While Bring Fido lists some dog friendly trails on their website, I find their listing sorely lacking.

Specifically, they primarily only list park and “tourist”  trails.

That is enough for some people but we like to get far out into nature and see some of the best natural sights the area has to offer.

If I am looking for dog friendly trails in Washington State where I live, I use the Washington Trails Association hike finder and filter for dog allowed (under trail feature and ratings).

Read: How to Find Off-Leash Dog Trails in Washington

If I’m traveling out of the state, I use AllTrails and filter by dog friendly (under suitability).

Honorable Mentions

I primarily travel with my dogs in the US and road trips are my favorite mode of transportation.

The websites above meet all of my research needs.

However, there are a few other websites worth mentioning.

• Travelnuity – She has travelled to many locations around the world with her Dachshund

• Boogie the Pug – she has some information about traveling with your small dog to the north east coat and South America.

Personally, I have written articles specific to:

Final Thoughts

I love taking my dogs on vacation with me so I am constantly researching where to visit, stay, and play with my dogs.

I’ve listed my favorite to-to websites for planning my dog friendly travel in this article.

Whether you are looking for a dog road trip planner, a dog friendly restaurant, or a dog friendly place to lay your heads at night, you’ll want to bookmark this article for future reference.

See Also: Driving to Canada from the Us

If you are going to be flying with your dog, check out the 9 Lessons I Learned While Flying with a Dog In Cabin.