Travel – YourDesignerDog

101 Tips For Terrific Trips with Your Dog

yourdesignerdog — Sat, 23 Jun 2018 13:31:00 +0000

Sadie’s newest book is now available on Amazon! Okay, really I wrote it, but Sadie helped. How did she help? Well aside from being an adorable inspiration, Sadie agreed to be the official tester and personally tried each and every tip in this book. She gives it four paws up!

In 101 Tips For Terrific Trips with Your Dog, I give you a wealth of information about traveling with dogs. Want to take your dog on a road trip? I’ve got some tips for you. Flying on an airplane with your dog? Check out my helpful hints. Planning to stay at a dog friendly hotel? You’ll find a variety of suggestions to help make your stay relaxing and enjoyable!

** Update!**

My new book is currently #1 on Amazon for short travel books!!!

This photo is the front and back cover of the print edition:

Want to see what this book has to offer? Click on the Look Inside preview below!

Do you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited? Then you can read the eBook version for free!

Be a Tourist in Your Own Town!

yourdesignerdog — Wed, 05 Oct 2016 09:45:23 +0000

The sun is shining; it’s a beautiful day. You want to take the dog out for a walk, but where to go? It gets boring walking the same old path around your neighborhood. But you’re not really in the mood to sit in traffic driving somewhere new and interesting. So why not explore your own town? I bet there are plenty of places in your own city that your dog hasn’t seen and smelled yet. Have you taken your pooch to every single park? Maybe you’ll find a waterfall you’ve never noticed before (Click here to read about the time Sadie and I discovered a surprise waterfall). Or maybe there’s a dog run your fur baby hasn’t explored yet. Your dog’s new favorite place could be waiting on the other side of town, so why not try out all the dog friendly places your own town has to offer!

This post is part of the BlogPaws Wordless Wednesday blog hop.

Relaxing at the Shore

yourdesignerdog — Mon, 05 Sep 2016 08:00:17 +0000

Sadie and I haven’t been around much in the couple of weeks. We’ve been taking some time to relax and enjoy the last bit of Summer. Last week Sadie and I spent a few days completely unplugged at the Jersey shore. Although the weather didn’t always cooperate, we still managed to have a relaxing few days having some fun at the beach and boardwalk.

My #1 Dog Friendly Dining Tip

yourdesignerdog — Thu, 20 Aug 2015 09:15:36 +0000

My top tip for dining out with your furry family is:

don’t hesitate to ask.

My family loves going out to dinner, but we almost never go out anymore because we feel sad having to leave Sadie home alone. So we get excited when we discover a new restaurant that is dog friendly. Sadie loves going out to dinner with us, exploring a new place with exciting new smells. And we love having Sadie as a dinner companion. But it’s hard to find places that allow dogs in my area, even if they have outdoor dining areas. And you can’t necessarily rely on reviews or word of mouth to find out if a restaurant is dog friendly, because one manager may love having dogs, but if someone else is in charge that day, he or she may be too nervous to allow your dog to stay. So my best piece of advice is don’t hesitate to ask, because what the restaurant staff says may surprise you.

For example, Sadie and I recently stayed at a dog friendly hotel that had an attached restaurant. The hotel clearly had frequent canine guests, as they had welcome treats and food and water bowls already set up in the rooms. So I assumed it would be an every day request to eat with my dog on the patio of the restaurant. As usual, assuming didn’t work out well. Apparently I am the first person to ever ask to eat there with my dog! The wait staff and kitchen staff had a discussion about my request and decided it was fine with them if the hotel manager approved. So then they had to track down the hotel manager to give permission for me to eat outside with my dog at the dog friendly hotel. Eventually the manger approved and we had a nice dinner on the patio. But the point of my story is that no other dog owner ever thought to ask. Imagine all the other poor doggies left alone in their hotel rooms when they could have been enjoying dinner with the rest of the family. All it took was a simple question.

This post is part of Thoughtless Thursday blog hop hosted by Ruckus the Eskie, Love Is Being Owned By a Husky, and M.K. Clinton.

This post is also part of the Thursday Barks and Bytes blog hop hosted by 2 Brown Dawgs and Heart Like A Dog.

Dog-Friendly Nashville, Tennessee

yourdesignerdog — Thu, 11 Jun 2015 08:00:02 +0000

Sadie and I recently spent some time in Nashville, Tennessee after the BlogPaws conference. I want to start this off by saying that it was raining like crazy for most of the two days we had to spend sightseeing in Nashville, so that seriously limited what we could do with a dog. Rain will cause that problem no matter what place you’re visiting. But Sadie and I still managed to have a great time and I feel like we saw quite a few interesting sites.

The first stop on my tour of Nashville was Centennial Park to see the Parthenon. I was an ancient history major in college, so I was really excited to see a complete recreation of the Ancient Greek temple, the Parthenon, in all its glory. Sadie was not allowed inside, but we walked all around the building, sat for a while among the giant columns, and took some great photos. Plus the Parthenon is in the middle of great park with a small lake, so it’s a beautiful place to visit.

Next we drove over to the heart of Nashville, the area called the District. This is the main tourist part of Nashville, with lots of cowboy and country music themed restaurants, bars, and shops. Here we found Riverfront Park with the historic Fort Nashborough. We walked in the park along the river, where you can look across and see the stadium of the Tennessee Titans. We looked around Fort Nashborough, a wooden recreation of the first settlement of Nashville in the 1700s.

A few of the stores in the area were dog friendly. One boot store in particular, Nashville Cowboy, actually asked us to bring Sadie inside so the staff could say hi to her. Obviously I didn’t mind the chance to do some cowboy boot shopping, and was glad the staff kept Sadie entertained while I shopped. That’s where we took the cowgirl Sadie photo at the top of this post.

We had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, where they had an outdoor patio that welcomed dogs. Thankfully the patio also featured umbrellas, because it started raining again during dinner.

The next day we made a quick visit to Fort Negley park. It’s a nice place to walk your dog around the remains of an historic fort, though there isn’t much to see there. But this park sits against the back of the Adventure Science Center, so it’s a good place to hang out with your four legged kids while your two legged kids check out the science museum.

We ended our time in Nashville at Belle Meade Plantation. For $10 you and your dogs can walk around the grounds of the estate and visit the out buildings. We saw horses, barns, stables, horse drawn carriages, a smokehouse, a dairy, slave quarters, Civil War bullet holes, a log cabin, and more. Sadie even souvenir shopped with me in the gift shop! There is also a small dog-friendly winery on the grounds, where the wine tasting is included in the admission price.

Nashville has quite a few other dog-friendly activities we just didn’t get the chance to try. The Nashville Ghost Tour, for example, is dog friendly. And Bicentennial Mall State Park, with its water spouts you can run through and it’s view of the State Capitol, would also be a great place to spend some time with your dog. I guess Sadie and I will just have to go back to Nashville some day to see the sights we missed and revisit some of our favorite dog-friendly places!

This post is part of the Thursday Barks and Bytes blog hop hosted by 2 Brown Dawgs and Heart Like A Dog.

This post is also part of the Thoughtless Thursday blog hop hosted by Ruckus the Eskie, Love is Being Owned By a Husky, and M.K. Clinton.