We love our dogs... and traveling with them!

Dogs are "Man's Best Friend" and ours are definitely an important part of our family. Our children have National Park Junior Ranger Books, and we have made similar travel books for our dogs and got paw print stickers from Amazon to mark where they have visited. We have our two Doodles and a Boston who have driven to Mexico with us, plus visited a lot of other states.

If you're considering taking your fur baby on a trip, you will need to plan ahead. Our first multi-state National Park trip is actually why we got our camper. We had a good run during most of the trip - all our camping/hotel/Airbnb accommodations worked - until we were on our way home and stopping overnight in Arkansas. We arrived late, driving from Denver to Little Rock (well, North Little Rock) in one day and our second hotel. The first hotel wanted a non-refundable cash only deposit on top of the regular credit card charge fees for the room and the animal deposit. Thankfully we found out before we got there and cancelled the reservation. But then they refused to refund our money. The second hotel, when we arrived at about 11:30 p.m. said they had given away all their pet rooms and we were out of luck - and again, refused to refund our money, even after offering to share video of the exchange where they refused to house us with their management. The employees said we refused to pay an additional cash only pet fee (we would have paid any amount at that point since we had our small children with us) and the management refused to even consider our video evidence of the exchange - which we took after realizing something wasn't right when the woman working said it was her first night and she didn't know what she was doing. Three more attempts to find a hotel that both had rooms available at midnight and would allow dogs, and we finally found a very sketchy motel to sleep in and left as early as we could the next morning. So, needless to say, we have very little positive to say about our experience with Arkansas.

So, a long story to say - please find a place early on and call to verify all fees, any cash deposits you may need to make. Especially in North Little Rock, also ask if you can get deposits back before you need to leave in the morning. Many of their hotels hold all deposits until after the room has been cleaned and they will not confirm a time frame, so you may have to wait until 2 p.m. to get your deposit back if that is when they decide to clean your room. We use a combination of tried-and-true hotel chains and actually calling to speak with a staff member at BringFido.com

Our dog Ollie visiting Shenandoah National Park.

Other considerations for the traveling aspect alone are stops where your pet can have potty breaks, having their harness or collar and leash easily accessible, making sure you have water and food available, keeping plenty of potty bags in the car, and any other comfort needs you may use for your pet like seat extenders, travel crates, or pet seat belts.

When visiting National Parks in particular, it is common to find extremely limited or no real pet friendly areas. Some National Parks (Shenandoah National Park is the dog-friendliest!) are welcoming and have BARK Ranger programs. All the NPS websites will tell you whether or not pets are allowed. If a site isn't welcoming, you can often keep pets in your car with you for driving through the park and utilize neighboring state parks or Bureau of Land Management areas that may be more open to pet accessibility.

Mammoth Cave National Park and Carlsbad Caverns have on-site pet kennels that are air temperature controlled you can keep your furry friends in during cave tours for a minimal rental fee. Keep in mind, as with most private kennels, you will need vaccine records to include rabies, distemper, parvo, and Bordetella. The most up to date information for the kennels and all things pet related can be found on each National Park's website. It is usually found by clicking "Plan Your Visit," then "Basic Information," followed by "Pets," but a few Parks have their sites under a different navigational path.

Our dog Finn at the Grand Canyon.

While traveling can present some challenges when you bring your furry friends, it can also present many wonderful memories for you, and we all know our pets love to be with us instead of being left home. Even we aren't able to take our dogs with us on every trip, and they enjoy staying with their grand-paw-rents when we must leave them. But for the trips we can take our fur babies along with us, we enjoy their company, and they enjoy seeing the different parts of the country too. Finn does want me to close by letting everyone to know that he was really confused where to go potty on his first trip to the desert southwest when there suddenly wasn't grass at our stops. He suggests giving your babies plenty of time to adjust to their new surroundings and to figure out what all the new smells are on the adventure.