Traveling with Your Pet

The AAA Pet Book

This is a reference tomb for traveling with Fido.  It lists pet-friendly hotels, campgrounds, restaurants, and references local attractions and dog parks.  The book also offers some useful tips for travel, including air travel for pooches and crossing borders.  The USA comprises 75% of the book, with smaller portions highlighting Canadian destinations.  We’ve used it on a few Canadian road trips, and found the information to be reliable, albeit incomplete.  We’ve (happily) discovered more dog parks, and dog-friendly shops and restaurants than were listed in the book.  I generally use a two-pronged approach to traveling with dogs – I consult the book first for potential accommodations in our desired area, then use travel sites online to read reviews and glean further information.  I also ALWAYS call a hotel as well, for an in-depth review of pet policies.  Many hotels that claim to be pet-friendly allow dogs only under 40 pounds, and many do not allow dogs anywhere except your room. An unanticipated delay is eternally possible when traveling, so the book is great to have in the car in the event you need to overnight somewhere unexpected.  Listings for smaller towns are surprisingly robust.