How To Travel With Your Dog

Traveling with your dog is not always cheap, or easy, but with a little bit of prep, you can make it more enjoyable for everyone. We did quite a big of road travel with our dog

WHEN YOU DRIVE

Bring their comforts

Dogs can be stressed when they're away from home and in unfamiliar situations. Even if your dog loves the car, it doesn't mean he's going to love it for hours and hours. My pup has her own seat in the car so she can see out the window, but I also bring a dog bed for when she starts to get tired and wants to stretch out. I take that bed into hotels with us, that way she has consistency, and her bed from home. I also found out that she is very picky about her dishes, so I need to bring those with me as well. I take her normal food and snacks with me, so she doesn't have tummy problems. If your dog has special toys, then take one or two of those along as well.

Stop often

Your dog can't tell you when they have to potty, so I plan to stop often. Before I leave home, I check out all the dog parks along our way and make a note of them. I also keep an eye out for rest areas, because even if I don't have to go, it's nice to get out and stretch your legs. Your dog will think so too. I plan a stop every two hours. 

Stay on a schedule

I know it's difficult to stay on a normal schedule when you're spending a ton of time in the car, but if your dog has a regular feeding time, make sure you stick to it. They can't understand why they have to wait, so make sure you plan one of those rest stops for a dinner break at their regular time.

Keep water readily available

At home your dog can probably get a drink any time they want. Also, the car can be a lot warmer than your home, so make sure your dog has plenty to drink. I make sure any time we stop at a rest stop, park, gas station or anywhere else, I offer some cool water. Bring a thermos or a few bottles of water in your cooler just for them, as well as a dish from which to drink from.

Find dog-friendly restaurants

Your dog doesn't want to stay in the car while you eat. Look for places that are dog-friendly and have outdoor seating. Most places that welcome dogs will let you know on their website or you can check out dogfriendly.com to find eateries when you travel.

Bring some drugs

Okay, not actual drugs, unless your dog requires medication. If your pup gets stressed over certain things, bring something that will comfort them or help them chill. A Thunder Shirt works for a lot of dogs, but I find that Bach's Rescue Remedy for dogs works great for mine.

Don't forget the necessities

If it's cold where you're traveling, don't forget their coat and boots (because frozen feet aren't fun). If it's hot where you're going, bring a cool collar and anything else that might help. We've used a collar similar to this. Also, remember their leash and collar/harness and potty bags.

WHEN YOU FLY

The same rules apply as when you road trip, but because you can't schedule stops when you want, you need to make the ones you are allowed to make count. Try to plan for layovers that are long enough to allow you to have a good potty break. Most airports have pet relief areas, but many make you go outside to use them, so you need to make sure you have enough time to make it back through security with your pup.

More and more airports are incorporating indoor pet relief areas for convenience, which is really nice. They aren't fancy, but at leas they can pee and stretch their legs before having to get back in their carrier. Make sure they get a snack and a drink before they have to get back on the plane.

Remember, as uncomfortable as you are flying (and hungry and thirsty and needing to use the restroom), you can control your actions and aren't confined to a small bag. Let them do their business before you do, so there are no accidents.

Where have you traveled with your pup?

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How To Spend 3 Days in Tucson

Back in January, I took a trip to Arizona with my mom and husband. This was his first time there, which was an interesting perspective considering I spent my entire school-age life there. Since this was our first trip where we didn't drive during Covid, we planned to do quite a bit outside, which was great, because the weather was perfect for this kind of visit.

We were there for just 4 days, but we made the most of those days. If you are looking for a short getaway and want to enjoy the outdoors and the desert landscape, here are my suggestions for visiting Tucson in just a few days.  

Click to see full res panorama

Take a Day Trip

We rented a car, because I knew we would be doing quite a bit of driving. One of our days we took a day trip to Tombstone and the surrounding area. Tombstone is a wonderful little historic town, with wooden sidewalks, dirt roads, and saloons. There's a mine tour, to help you learn about their history with silver mining. You can stand where the shootout at the O.K. Corral happened. Head to Old Tombstone Western Theme Park to immerse yourself in Wild West entertainment.

We started our visit with a stroll through Boothill Graveyard, which is the resting place of many people who lived and died in Tombstone, including the three men who were killed in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Many who reside here were actually killed over petty disputes or from diseases that we now have vaccines or other cures/preventions for. 

There's even a Jewish cemetery and memorial that sits on the site, a little off from the main cemetery, where you can sit and reflect or pay your respects. While there are no individual gravestones, it's a lovely memorial.

Next we got lunch, walked the main street, bought some exotic jerky, and then took in a show at the Saloon Theatre. For about an hour, you learn the history of the city through historical gunfight shows. Three actors in Wild West costume reenact some of the gunfights that shaped the town. 

We planned to go to Bisbee afterward, but we were running low on time, so we headed to Fairbank, which was touted as a ghost town. While there was indeed no one there, it was also a camp site for RVs. Due to Covid, we couldn't go into any of the buildings on the site, but were able to view what remained of the town, including the post office and school house. 

You may want to visit Bisbee, another mining town, Kartchner Caverns State Park, where you can learn about limestone, or Colossal Cave Mountain Park, where you can take in the colorful rock formations.

Biosphere 2

When we lived in Arizona, Biosphere hadn't opened to the public yet. I remember how excited everyone was about this experiment going on where scientists were going to live in a self-contained environment, which I assume was meant to see how well we could do this maybe on another planet or if we tried to move to other inhospitable environments. I knew if I went back I was going to take a tour. 

While you'll want to bring good walking shoes, there isn't a lot of "hiking" like the website and the signs say. Yes, there are some stairs, but not a ton. It is also mostly accessible for those with mobility issues. We took a self-guided tour, via an app on our phone. There is staff on-site to answer any questions, but you basically learn everything you need about how the environment works through the app and from signs along the way. 

Inside you can view the ocean environment, the rainforest, the sleeping quarters and more. The only place we were unable to go was the observatory. For as much as is on the site, the tour is pretty short, giving us plenty of time to do other things after our morning visit.

Tucson Botanical Gardens

I love to visit botanical gardens when I travel, because they showcase many of the local plants and flowers. Even though there are a lot of cactus at this garden, there's also art, flowers, herbs, and butterflies. There's also a small museum and gallery within the gardens, a café, a lovely gift shop, and a miniature train. 

We spent much more time here than we expected to, because we learned so much about the couple that started the gardens and the plants within, plus we enjoyed admiring the many large art pieces dotted around. 

Presidio San Augustin del Tucson

There's no better way to learn about a place than with hands-on and interactive exhibits and the Presidio is the perfect place to get both of those experiences. If you plan your visit well, you will be there during living history time. You'll get to talk to a blacksmith, listen to an orchestral circle, ask about kitchen tools, learn about baking in a clay oven, and watch a real cannon ceremony and witness the firing of it.

The Presidio is small, but it's got a lot packed inside and out in the courtyard. It's the perfect place to visit if you have kids traveling with you, though we three adults greatly enjoyed it as well. I spoke to a plant historian who taught me about how they learned about people and their travels by following the route of a certain plant and its mentions in stories and accounts. I found his enthusiasm contagious.

Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

Another way to learn about the area you're visiting is through animals. The Desert Museum was one of my favorite places from when I'd lived in Tucson. It has acres of animals and plants that are indigenous to the area, including wildflowers for pollen-collectors, reptiles, and birds. 

There is a lot of outdoor walking without cover and on uneven ground, so wear your sunscreen (or maybe a hat) and good shoes. I did see someone in a wheelchair cover the loop, so it's accessible to all, but even if you don't take that loop, there's still much to see on a paved path.

If you're looking for a more traditional way of viewing animals that isn't a 30-minute drive from the city center, check out Reid Park Zoo. It's one of the best zoos I've ever been to, and small enough to visit in just a few hours. 

There are many other things to see and do in Tucson, especially if you enjoy hiking and getting outside. We mostly only found ourselves inside during some dining experiences, but even then we were often seated away from others or near those who also entered wearing masks. 

You'll find traffic in the city is pretty horrible, but since it's not that large, it's not the worst traffic you'll ever see, but it also makes it seem worse than it is, because there aren't too many other ways to get where you want to go than the main streets. Just give yourself extra time to get anywhere, or go early in the morning, when traffic is light. Many things close before 6pm, because it can get quite hot in the afternoon, so an early start is smart if you want to do multiple things per day.

Have you been to Tucson? If so, what were your favorite things?

Travel Is Educational

Travel always teaches me something, whether it's something big or something small like researching dining options before regretting your dinner choice. We haven't had any big trips since September of 2019, but that gave us a lot to marinate on for the next couple years. 

Just when you think you've got your travel style perfected, you learn something new or need to change your mindset. 2019 was a cool year for me travel-wise. I had fantastic trips and I also learned a lot of things Here are the four I found most important:

You can always pack lighter
I'm great at packing light, but I'm also great at overpacking. When we fly somewhere new, I give myself a finite space to pack in, but I can overpack my small bags. This year traveling to Scotland, and having to pack dressy clothes for a wedding, we had half a carry-on full of items that we were basically just wearing once or twice.

I love gadgets, but I need to remember to pare down. I don't always need to take my iPad with me, or 3 magazines I never read, and I definitely need to reevaluate everything in my toiletry bag, because I'm still not using some of the items in it. The only extra item I was really happy I took with me was a second jacket. I brought a packable winter coat with attached hood and then a separate rain jacket. I figured if it was really cold, I could wear both, as the one could have zipped into the other. I didn't have to do this, but I did need my rain jacket on the last day of travel, because it rained all day and then poured for an hour straight. I joked that we got 2 weeks worth of rain in an afternoon, because we were really lucky the whole rest of our trip.

You can travel with family and still like them after
I don't really travel well with many others. I like my space and need to recharge from group time. Being with people 24/7 is a lot for me, especially when those other people aren't like me. I worried that 5 of us sharing a vacation rental would be too much and either I would yell at people halfway through the week or they would think I was a jerk because I would hide in my room after a day out. 

We decided to plan our days out the way we wanted to and then let family know they could join us or not. We did some stuff with people and a lot of stuff on our own and then met up for lunch or dinner or connected when we all got back for the night. At one point, Eric and I were at the same place as his sister and her husband and we didn't really hang out until we were done with our tour and then had lunch together. Having expectations that you don't have to spend all your time together so everyone can do what they want and not get sick of each other is pretty important.


Uber and other rideshare can be cheaper than public transportation
This is especially true in places like London where tons of people are going to and from the airport and there are few ways to get there if you don't live there and have a car. We paid something like $70 for the two of us to take the Heathrow Express, because we didn't realize we needed to book tickets 3 months in advance to get the much discounted price, but we also were traveling at peak time, so we couldn't buy discounted tickets going back either. 

A few days before departure, I looked up train info and then got an estimate for Uber. We actually saved money and also didn't have to schlep our bags half a mile to get to a bus or Tube station, which was such a relief, because we (okay *I*) bought so much stuff to bring home with us.

Have a back-up plan
This is always important to me. You never know what's going to happen. Well, in this instance we found out that the washer in our rental didn't work (and there wasn't even a dryer) and there wasn't a laundromat anywhere near us. We re-wear our clothes, because we pack so few. I try to bring dark colors that don't show stains and also clothing that's breathable and doesn't hold odor (if possible). So, when we found out the washer didn't work, it was annoying, but I hand washed socks and underwear in the sink and hung them up overnight next to the radiator and was good to go.

Unfortunately, two of our group had put all of their clothes in the washing machine, which turned on, filled up, and then did nothing. After wasting half a day trying to fix it and call the owner, they finally hung everything up, but all the pants were jeans, and those take forever. My tip: Unless your jeans are visibly dirty, don't bother washing them on vacation. Even Richard Branson, who owns Virgin Airlines, will only bring/wear one pair of jeans on his entire trip. I won't go that far, as I also tend to throw in a pair of black pants for dressier occasions, and I wash everything else before they go back into my rotation. I couldn't do that this time, so I just made sure I washed enough socks and underwear to get us through to London and could wash everything else there.

This won't be my last what-did-I-learn post, as every trip teaches me something, and we can all benefit. Tell me some of the things you've learned about yourself or travel from your trips in the comments.