Please help us brainstorm for a dog friendly weekend getaway!
May 24, 2012 5:15 PM   Subscribe

Please help us brainstorm for a dog friendly weekend getaway!

My SO and I adopted a dog from the local shelter couple of months back. He's house trained and generally well-behaved. We're planning a weekend getaway and would love to bring the dog. But I'm out of ideas as to what type of activities should we be planning that will allow us to bring the dog. The only thing I can think of are hiking and camping trips, maybe the beach. I'm trying to avoid a whole weekend dedicated to hiking as we do plenty of local hikes with our dog. It'll be great if we get to do something different on our weekend trip.

We're located in SoCal, if that helps. I'm open to both generally activity suggestions and specific locale recommendations.
posted by wcmf to Travel & Transportation (6 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Have you googled for pet-friendly hotels? They can range into the upper fancy $$$ resorts with dog-friendly canoes to places that will just be OK with letting your dog in the room with you. A dog-friendly cafe or restaurant can be a nice place, or maybe a tour of high-rated off-leash dog parks in the state?
posted by The otter lady at 5:22 PM on May 24, 2012


Huntington Dog Beach
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:42 PM on May 24, 2012


Carmel-by-the-Sea in Monterey County is a bit far from where you are, but it's overall a very dog-friendly town. Dogs are allowed in nearly all cafes and restaurants, there's a small but tony downtown area with lots of shops, and dogs can run off-leash on Carmel Beach. When we visited last December with our dog, we stayed at Tradewinds. Something to consider, perhaps, for a longer holiday.
posted by peripathetic at 5:55 PM on May 24, 2012 [2 favorites]


Oh my god. Look on vrbo.com for "San Diego dog beach". You're done. There are tonnnnns of dog friendly houses for rent, and in the area near the dog beaches a lot of the restaurants have dog friendly porches too.
posted by town of cats at 8:17 PM on May 24, 2012


And yeah, I think pretty much every Sheraton allows dogs. It's just that they typically want them either crated when you're gone or just never left alone in the room (I think this varies by hotel) which is tricky and a little nerve-wracking, compared to a vacation rental where you could leave the dog in an enclosed yard.

Seriously, I think some of my dogs' happiest moments have happened at San Diego dog beaches. If you go to SD you should also go to Bull's Smokin' BBQ - they have a dog-friendly patio so you can just give your dogs all the bones from your ribs. We never feed our dogs from the table so this was a real vacation treat for them.
posted by town of cats at 10:22 PM on May 24, 2012


Also the Aloft hotel (starwood brand) is dog-friendly, affordable and uber-cool. Just pick a nearby place and then pack up Fido and head out.

There's an Aloft in Rancho Cucamonga. Not sure what that would entail, but hey, there it is.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 8:11 AM on May 25, 2012


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