After 30 years of competently living with a menagerie of dogs, cats, cockatiels and even house-broken bunnies, we were suddenly thrust into the role of clueless novices when we decided to plan a pet friendly weekend this past year with friends from Northern California and their little one. Since we live in Southern California, it seemed a snap to arrange a wonderful getaway with our respective new pooches halfway between our homes.

While there is a wealth of pet friendly websites on the internet, it was still a major challenge to pick a location then compile hotel, restaurants and other services from varying sources. And being bargain travelers, we wanted good value for our money and lots of fun and R & R to boot.

Ours is the less than enthused one on the left.

It turned out to be a most memorable weekend in a picturesque resort with a wonderful pet friendly restaurant, and lots of activity in a delightful pet friendly town. But the trip required hours of preplanning, followed by numerous calls to our hotel booking website who at the last minute wasn't certain about the pet friendly status of our reservation, even though everything had been confirmed and paid for. Everything worked out great in the end, but it was much more work and stress than necessary.

After that experience, we thought it would be helpful to create a comprehesive list of lodging, restaurants, parks, beaches and vets by city so that when you travel to a location in California you have everything you need for that city in one spot.

We do not provide a lodging reservation system. There are wonderful websites out there with details, price ranges, photos and visitor reviews and our mission is not to reinvent the wheel. However, most reservation websites promote only those properties that are paid advertisers. There is certianly nothing wrong with that. We just wanted to list all of your choices, so that you could take it from there. We are not endorsing any particiular lodging, restaurant or service, but rather providing you with a user friendly, comprehensive list.

We do research and confirm the pet friendly status of our listings and label our findings with the notation . However pet policies may vary from property to property, they may suddenly change, and some properties may only have a limited number of pet friendly rooms available. So at the end of the day, we recommend that you call an establishment directly to confirm their pet policy and availability. We want traveling with your pet to be full of adventure, not unpleasant surprises.

This website is funded through the placement of Google Ads, and the support of the businesses who wish to enhance their free listing. So if you've found our website helpful, please visit again and tell a friend! A percentage of all proceeds goes to support Animal Shelters and Rescue groups in California. We are adament about helping with their challenging task of providing for pets who need homes. One of the greatest joys of traveling is coming home.

If you would like to share a great pet friendly location in California, let us know about it by clicking on suggest a site. And by all means, if you would like to share a photo or two of your pet friendly California adventure, email them to us, along with captions to zoe@petfriendlytravelincalifornia.com.

Thank you for visiting and for your support. Happy trails to you!