Travel and Leisure Articles

If you happen to have a dog and wish to share your vacations with your pets in tow, then you may often encounter a whole host of problems. There is the fear that in a hotel there is the possibility of disturbing those who are renting rooms above, below, and beside you, should the dog bark or make other noises. Other difficulties include things like finding an appropriate spot where you could take the dog to relieve itself, and whether or not the dog can be kept in the room (if so, does it need to be in an approved carrier) or only in a kennel that the hotel maintains. Confining the animal to a kennel presents its own problems because the standard of sanitation may not be up to yours, and you might well be limited in the hours that you can visit your pet, as well as being limited to the area for the areas where these visits are allowed to take place.

If, like most pet owners, you consider your four-footed companion as part of your family, the above description is not something you would want to subject anyone to…even a dreaded in-law! If you’ve experienced this kind of problem in the past, undoubtedly you’ve experienced some very anxious times regarding your pet’s happiness and health, and could even be wondering if it was worth it at all to travel with your pet away from home. Fortunately, you can put an end to this sort of worry if you choose to travel with the dog. Believe it or not, it is possible to take a vacation to a spot where you would not have to worry about disturbing other hotel patrons, lodging your animal, or taking care of any of the myriad of other little problems that traveling with a pet involves.

One of the best places you can choose for a vacation that will include your dog is to explore the possibility of taking a vacation in the towns of Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, Tennessee in the area known as the Great Smoky Mountains. Both of these towns offer cabins for rent that are capable of supporting any number of lodgers (including one or two you can take up to 50 people), and are also pet friendly. These pet friendly cabins offer a certain amount of isolation if they are located a good distance away from other cabins that are nearby. There is also plenty of room to walk and play with your dog, as well as room to allow the animal to relieve itself. There are several cabin rental companies in these towns that are dog friendly, and for a small pet deposit will allow you to keep your dog with you. If at the end of your stay, your dog has created no damage, the deposit is often refundable.

This area of the Smoky Mountains offers spectacular natural views and plenty of trails and areas to walk or take hikes with your dog. Other attractions located in the area that you are sure to enjoy include Dollywood, Ripley’s Aquarium, and the ability to buy local handicrafts made by the local inhabitants of Smoky Mountains. From time to time festivals celebrating local crafts and mountain music are held for the visitors. There are so many things to see and do, which makes the Great Smoky Mountains an ideal destination to take your pet on your next vacation.

Davenport lies around the Mississippi River of Iowa. It is Scott County’s county seat. It was founded last May 14th of the year 1836 by a certain Antoine LeClaire, following the peace treaty signing that ended the Black Hawk War. The city’s name was derived from Antoine LeClaire’s friend, Colonel George Davenport.

Davenport has a population of 98,359 as of year 2000. Its current mayor is Bill Gluba. Palmer College of Chiropractic and Saint Ambrose University are its 2 main institutions, making it the “birthplace of the wellness technique and chiropractic”.

Davenport boasts of several popular music festivals such as The Mississippi Valley Fair, The Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival (dedicated to Bix Beiderbecke) and The Mississippi Valley Blues Festival. There is even the Bix 7, a 7-mile foot race that runs through one of the above-mentioned festivals.

When visiting Davenport, you can stay in any of their relaxing hotels like:

Clarion Hotel Conference Center

This hotel is located at 5202 Brady Street Davenport, IA 52806. It is conveniently situated near Interstate 80, a few miles from the Mississippi River. Popular activities in the region include rollerblading, walking and biking along their scenic trails.

This pet-friendly hotel lies in close proximity to attractions like the IMAX Theater, Figge Art Museum, and the Putnam Museum of History and Natural Science. Amenities and facilities of the hotel include 288 elegant guest rooms, free airport-hotel transfers, wireless high speed Internet, hot tubs, heated indoor pools, a game room, fitness center and secretarial services as well as banquet rooms, meeting spaces, fax and copy services.

Each room is equipped with hair dryers, coffee makers, video game consoles, irons with iron boards and even whirlpool bathtubs as well as refrigerators, balconies and microwaves. You can even opt for handicap accessible and non-smoking rooms. Check in time is at 3PM while check out time is at 12NN.

La Quinta Inn Davenport

This 3-star pet-friendly hotel is located at 3330 East Kimberly Road Davenport, IA 52807. Enjoy elegant accommodations and closeness to everything that Davenport can offer. It is merely 8 miles to the Quad Cities International Airport and downtown Davenport. It is also in close proximity to shopping areas, restaurants and John Deere. You can also find the Mississippi River and Casinos as well as the largest golf course in the region.

The hotel provides a lot of amenities and facilities like an onsite fitness center, year round indoor heated pool, free breakfast and newspaper along with meeting spaces that can accommodate up to 3,000 guests, plus high speed Internet access and laundry facilities.

It has a total of 129 rooms in its 2 floors. Each room is guaranteed with color TVs, dataports, iron with boards, coffee makers and touchtone phones. They also provide free local calls, newspaper, hairdryers and alarm clocks. Nearby restaurants include Applebee’s, Red Lobster, Bennigan’s and Village Inn among others. The hotel accepts all major credit cards and coupons as well as certificates, traveler’s checks and vouchers.

Fairfield Inn Davenport

This smoke-free hotel is located at 3206 East Kimberly Road Davenport, IA 52807. It is very close to the North Park Mall which has JC Penney, Dillards, Younkers and Sears. Alcoa, John Deere, Rhythm City, Jumera as well as the Isle of Capri Casinos are just nearby.

They have a total of 62 rooms that are provided with complimentary Continental deluxe breakfasts, alarm clocks, air conditioners, hairdryers, Cable TVs and pay-per-view movies as well as refrigerators, microwave ovens and complimentary wireless high speed Internet. These guest rooms were renovated last Spring of 2004. Cribs and rollaway beds can also be requested.

Pet services have come a long, long way in the last few years. With the popularity of pet daycares, spas, pet clothing, and much more, pets and their owners have never had it so good! There are a lot of options for pet owners out there - no matter what it is that they want to do with their pet. However, there are still some difficulties in certain areas when it comes to pets, and traveling is probably the biggest area in which there are barriers for people with pets.

One of these travel barriers is the fact that all restaurants - even truck stops - do not allow pets inside. Unless your pet is a working dog, he or she will have to wait in the car while you dine! If you feel bad about this, consider buying your pet a treat at the restaurant and giving it to them afterwards.

Another travel barrier is paying extra cash for flying with your pet. Most airlines allow pets to fly, but not with their owners. Granted, the animal’s airfare will not be as much as the owner’s, but it is still an extra fee that some people do not like paying. Before you complain about the cost of flying with your pet though, call around to your local kennels and do some research on kennel costs these days. Add that to your guilt about leaving him or her behind, and paying that extra flying fee suddenly won’t seem so bad.

When you travel with your pet, you tend to be very limited on where you can go. A lot of the popular vacation destinations are just not animal friendly, and many places will not even allow pets - especially at hotels. If you search hard enough though, you will eventually find a few places that might be pet friendly, but they will not likely be any of the places that you have seen advertised on the media.

Even if you do manage to vacation at a place that is pet friendly, you will not be able to take your pet sight seeing at many places, and this can definitely put up a barrier to your travels! It is no fun to have to call around and try to get someone to pet sit for you while you are on vacation, or even just traveling from one destination to another.

Another travel barrier that you may encounter when you elect to bring your pet with you is the matter of bathroom breaks. You can’t exactly pull over just anywhere, and you won’t always have a litter box or newspaper handy. This can be the most frustrating part of traveling with your pet, and there is really no good solution to this issue. The most you can really do is keep a careful eye on your pet and monitor when and how much he or she eats and take bathroom breaks accordingly.

Relocating pets can cause some problems and difficulties, but some people would just rather have these issues than be without their pet for a long period of time. If you fall into this category, make sure you do your research before you make any decisions as to where you want to go, and you will be fine.

Going somewhere cool and exciting for the summer, looking for that perfect vacation rental … oh, but you want to take you cat or your favorite dog, after it’s part of who you are and it just wouldn’t be right or fair to leave them behind. Well, it is true as they say in the vacation rental business, no two places are alike and often attempting to compare them is hard to do and if you try to judge by price you will often get your feelings hurt.

Perhaps you have seen that TV commercial where a couple goes away for the summer on their Honeymoon to a beach paradise and finds a place for half the price, then they look out the window and the view is not of the beach, but rather a grave yard, where two guys are busy burying a body? Funny huh, well not if that happens to you, which is the point of the commercial. Now back to the subject of taking Fluffy or your dog Bear?

Most vacation rentals do not allow animals or pets, but some do, many times the ones that do are rather scruffy properties, run down and of course, the rental agency or owners do not care if you take your pet, because the place is already trashed, smells and no one else would be willing to shell out that kind of money for the summer with such a dismal appearance, see the problem?

One vacation rental I went to for the summer with my dog, Bear, yes that is his real name, was great, it had everything I wanted and the back yard was basically the Redwood Forest with trails starting literally from there. I talked to another vacation renter there for the summer at the local coffee shop with a far worse story, she brought her dog too, and the vacation rental she got was also a dog, we laughed and I said what should we name it; Scruffy!

Pet owners desiring to visit the New Jersey Shore need not board their cat or dog elsewhere or rely on a petsitter. There are some pet friendly hotels on the New Jersey shore that cater to the pet owner and his furry friends.

Most hotels able to accommodate pets and their owners reserve certain rooms for this clientele. The Ocean Place Resort and Spa of Long Branch allows pets and their owners to lodge only in rooms without a view. If a vacationer with a pet asks for a room at the Howard Johnson Hotel of Toms River, he will get one of three rooms in which smoking is allowed. The Days Inn of Neptune designates eight rooms as pet rooms while the Marquis de Lafayette Hotel in Cape May has seventeen pet-reserved rooms on their first floor.

Many of the pet friendly hotels on the New Jersey shore have restrictions on how many pets and how big the pets are that may occupy the rooms. Some rules are fairly lenient. The Econo Lodge Boardwalk of Atlantic City has no weight restrictions or limits. Many Quality Inns, including the Quality Inn West of Atlantic City and the Quality Inn of Toms River, allow a person to have two pets, both of which must be under one hundred pounds. The Sheraton of Atlantic City has a dog-only policy and the animal must be under eighty pounds.

Most pet friendly hotels on the New Jersey shore will charge an additional fee per pet per night. This can be anywhere from $10 per night per pet in the case of the Econo Lodge Boardwalk of Atlantic City and the Crystal Inn of Neptune to $50 per pet per night at the Howard Johnson Hotel of Toms River. The Ocean Place Resort and Spa of Long Branch charges $150 per stay but this includes certain amenities like a water dish with your pet’s name on it, a pet bed, and other things to make your pet’s stay easier. The Residence Inns of Neptune, Tinton Falls, and Somer’s Point require a $100 non-refundable sanitation fee.

In addition to the extra pet lodging fee, many pet friendly hotels on the New Jersey shore will ask for a security deposit from $100 cash (no credit cards) at the Marquis de Lafayette Hotel to $200 at the Palace Hotel of Cape May. These deposits are refunded as soon as housekeeping staff can inspect your room upon checkout and determine no damage has been done.

If you find a hotel which will allow your pet in your room you will likely be asked to sign a pet policy or waiver. This will tell you exactly what the rules are for keeping your pet at the hotel. Hotels generally require pets to remain attended in the room unless being taken outside on a leash for an outing or a walk.

Hotels may amend their pet policies so avoid difficulties and always call the hotel to make sure they know you will be lodging with your pet.