Best Websites and Apps for Planning a Dog Friendly Vacation

3 weeks ago 13

I rarely travel without my Dachshunds. Honestly, I don’t have much interest in going if they can’t come.

Although I have flown with each of my dogs on a few occasions, my preferred method of travel is driving. In fact, we’ve taken several big road trips that most people only dream of.

Around 2015, we drove to Colorado to climb the highest 14er in the state – Mt. Elbert – with our Dachshunds Chester and Gretel.

In 2017, I drove 4,000 miles with Gretel and a friend’s dog from Seattle, Washington to Phoenix, Arizona.

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

I just got back from a 2,800 mile, 3-week road trip with Summit and Otter to hike and hang out in the desert.

UPDTATED: Article originally published August 2014.

Trips like this take a lot of planning, but frankly, shorter trips with dogs do too. I love the planning process and think it’s part of the fun. I’ve easily spent thousands of hours over the years planning our dog friendly vacations.

Ok… yes, it’s possible to plan trips using AI these days but 1) they still take a lot of fact checking 2) the recommendations too “vanilla” for me – I like the obscure places most people have never been and 3) not planning it myself takes half of the fun out of trips for me.

I thought I would share some of my favorite resources I use to plan our dog friendly travel itineraries in case you think like me.

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

The route

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, if I only want to drive 6 hours the first day, because that is about 8-9 total hours on the road with breaks, I keep mapping intermediate destinations along our route until I find one that is about 6 hours from Seattle.

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

The road less traveled (aka. the fun stuff)

Once I have my general route and stops planned out, I start at the beginning and zoom out on the map. That’s when I start planning the fun parts of the trip.

Still using Google maps, I look for green areas (indicating natural areas like forests and parks) and labeled points of interest (if Google thinks their are cool enough to list, they’re re worth checking out).

I look for National Parks near our route (because, yes, you can still enjoy National Parks with your dog despite the restrictive rules).

I check my long-time blogger friend’s website – Go Pet Friendly – Because her and her husband crisscrossed the US in their motorhome with dogs for several years and, like me, they also liked to seek out the cool and unusual dog friendly spots. I browse their old articles for suggestion of things to do or see along our route.

I also review my *year* bucket list I’ve been saving in Evernote to see any of the places I wanted to visit are reasonably close to our planned driving route.

Lastly, I may go on Instagram and search locations near or along my route to see what photos come up. I’ve found a lot of really cool places that way.

I then adjust my previously determined route based on stops I want to make along the way and how long I want to spend at each of them. I also sometimes take a slightly longer route to somewhere if it means driving a road I haven’t been on before.

Finding Dog Friendly Campsites

Next, I need to decide where we will stay each night (which also influences where we stop). The majority of our road trips exclusively, or mostly, involve dispersed camping.

Dispersed camping means heading down a dirt road, pulling over on the side of the road, and setting up your tent (we have a rooftop tent, which means we don’t have to worry about how smooth or even the ground is). This style of camping requires that you be totally self sufficient as there is no electricity, water, garbage services, and sometimes no cell service.

The tradeoff is that you don’t need reservations, it’s almost always free (sometimes there is a small fee or you need a land-use pass), and you aren’t (usually) stuck next to noisy neighbors.

How do I find dispersed campsites?

I know that you can camp for free along most U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) roads, and there are a lot of those in the west. Often, that means I note where I am driving by USFS or BLM owned land, I plan to stop and camp in the area, and I just drive around until I find a site (you’ll often see spots that have obviously already been established).

Occasionally, I do “break down” and stay at an established campsite like a county, state, or National Park. You almost always need a reservation for those, but I check the website specific to the park to see if they, by chance, don’t or they set aside a couple of sites from drive-up campers (first come-first served).

If you are going to research a campsite on your own, I highly suggest you read my article Tips for Finding A Dog Friendly Campsite.

However, if I want a known campsite for the night, instead of leaving it to chance and likely having to find a dispersed campsite in the dark, I use the Hipcamp website (they also have an app). It’s like Airbnb for campsites. I can search the area where I want to stop based on price, amenities, and which ones allow dogs to stay.

Now, here is the part where my Grandma clutches her pearls: If I just need a few hour nap and want to keep driving, and I don’t want to get off my route for the sake of time, I sleep in my car at truck stops or rest areas. Seriously. A lot of travelers do it and it’s not as scary as you think. The bonus is that you can pay for a shower at a truck stop.

Gretel loves dog friendly vacations that include car rides

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. It’s cool because you can put in your starting destination, stops along the way, final destination, and they show you a map of hotels along your route.

If 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. Pretty much every single dog friendly hotel I’ve found is listed there and you can book at a competitive rate directly through the website.

On BringFido you can view all dog friendly hotels in a specific city as well as estimated rates, descriptions, reviews, pet fees (so there are no surprises), and usually pet policy information.

Finding Dog Friendly Restaurants

Mostly, I find dog friendly restaurants where I am by wandering the streets and looking for ones with outdoor seating. Then I ask if they allow dogs. I find that rules and regulations change so much, it’s the surest way to find a place to eat that currently allows dogs.

If I want some assistance locating one, I check the Bring Fido dog friendly city directory.

If I need to eat now and want to save time, I usually just grab something to eat at a fast-food drive through, a grocery store, or get takeout from a regular restaurant, and eat it in my car or at a local park.

Finding Dog Friendly Trails

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). I like that the website has been around for a long time and there are many, many detailed trip reports by locals listed for each hike.

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

However, the AllTrails app is more convenient since I can quickly pull it up on my phone, it quickly locates me, and and shows the nearby trails. If I am traveling out of state, the AllTrails app is the only thing that I use.

The down-side is that I find it to only be about 80% accurate when it comes to dog friendly trails. While I have never encountered a situation where the description said “dogs allowed” and they weren’t, many times I have discovered a fully dog friendly trail, or partially (say, the first half) that is not listed as dog friendly on the app. While I don’t often drive far out of my way just to verify whether a trails is dog friendly at the trailhead, I do keep that in mind.

AllTrails also shows dotted lines that are usually unmarked trails or logging roads you can seek out and find. Some end up being duds or inaccessible, but I’ve found several really cool hikes that are only lightly trafficked that way.

I know the title of this article is “websites and apps” but another excellent way to discover trails when camping is to just wander around nearby and see what you find (assuming you are not staying in a National Park or similar where dogs are only allowed in campgrounds).

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 couple 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.