PE.com - Tourism Blog

Pack Your Pet and Go

Katie is co-dependent, hyperactive and whiny but she's quite the little traveler.

My family's dachshund, the aforementioned Katie, took her first vacation with us for Thanksgiving to Yosemite and came out of the experience a better dog (she was categorically the "cutest dog on earth" to begin with so there wasn't a lot of room for improvement).

Our fears -- her fiesty reaction to tourists and wildlife, eating funny looking things on the ground, being outside the confines of her home and backyard -- were unfounded. Almost overnight, perhaps because she was thrown into the deep end of being around a lot of strangers and strange things when she led a largely sheltered existence prior, she became a dog in control even when she got home.

Our only fear during the trip -- our little dog (with little legs) leaping without a fear in the world off of the three-foot tall beds in the room. She's still a daredevil.

If you're traveling to Palm Springs anytime soon with your dog in tow, I found this interesting tid-bit mentioned in other media:

The Viceroy in Palm Springs takes pet travel to a whole new level ... a personalized dog bowl upon arrival, doggie pools and a dog sitter but traveling with your dog will add another $85 to your bill. Oddly, the website mentions generic "pets" a few times so I'm wondering if less traditional family pets are welcome. My family's tortoises are in desperate need of a spa treatment.

With that said, I've got to ding the official sounding officialpethotels.com site for failing to mention anything about how pet friendly the hotels are except that they accept pets.