Long past the days when the only place our pets could travel was the park and Petco. It seems more and more sites are welcoming our dogs and even creating experiences for them. However, there are as well, A LOT of places that claim to be “pet friendly” only for you to discover that there’s not a lot of options once you arrive there. To avoid frustration and making sure your doggo has as good a time as you, we have compiled a list of places that might be pawsome o pawful for you to visit!
Acapulco: PAWSOME! Bring him in! This place is doggy heaven, with kms upon kms of beach your dog can spend a full beach day with you. There are several hotels that welcome pets (check beforehand for rules), and we also discovered a beach club (Celeste Beach House) accepts them as well. Acapulco is so pet friendly that the supermarket has a pet parking (water and fake grass included) and they can join you around La Isla (an open shopping mall) and get an ice cream with the fam!
Val’Quirico: PAWSOME for a day trip! If you want to take some IG worthy photos and enjoy a day out of the city with Fido Val’Quirico might be your best bet. Very close to Mexico city the place is beaming with doggos, so much so that all around the complex you have poop bags and water containers for them. Your pet will be welcomed in all the terraces from the restaurants and the ice cream parlour has a special doggo ice cream!
Valle de Bravo PAWNDER UPON! Getting there, we went to some cabins that have some specific dog friendly rooms. The rooms are not great, nor is the view but it was nice to have a place where he could hang with us. There are several nature walks that you can all take together, particularly the Velo de Novia Nature Walk; bonus points for him to jump in the water! If you’re hungry, your pup will love the food truck zone in Avandaro where you can have some nice hipster food while he can beg to the sausage truck or the frozen yoghurt truck to get a small treat (spoiler alert, he did!)
Tepoztlan, PAWFUL! Avoid! We took our pooch there, hoping he’d hike the Cerro de Tepozteco with us and would enjoy walking around the city. Boy were we wrong, dogs are not allowed in the Tepozteco, which makes a lot of sense since they want to protect the wildlife, furthermore there are basically no pet friendly hotels and the city has no parks for them to roam around. There are also quite a few very aggressive stray dogs around so you need to be very very careful. I’d say let your doggo sit this one out!
Lastly here are some pro-tips for you to take your dog with you or leave him behind with a nice sitter.
To bring him with you and especially if you have a larger dog your best bet is AirBnB. There are quite a few homes that will gladly welcome your 4-legged companion. More and more hotels are advertising as pet friendly but most of them require you to travel with your pet in their crate and you can’t leave them alone at all. In our case, we also have looked for hosts in the cities we're visiting so we don't leave him behind.
If you don’t want to struggle and want him to stay at home there are a TON of places where you can find a reliable pet sitter. Some of our favourite services are: Host-a-Pet, Cuidamimascota or Rover. These online services have the advantage that they have insurance so if something does happen your dog and the sitter will be covered. If you are a bit more trusting, several Facebook expat groups continuously advertise people that might want to host your pet for a few days but you will need to make a personal arrangement with them.
What are you waiting for? Grab the poop bags, make sure your dog tag is up to date and go explore!