Traveling with Your Pet

Just as Loews shines for providing stellar family-friendly accommodations, they are also a great choice when traveling with your pet. Their Loews Loves Pets program is the cat's meow. If you have more than one cat or dog, that's fine — at Loews they are welcome to accompany you. Loews offers treats and a toy and can facilitate bedding, dog-walking services, and even roomservice meals for little Fido or Trixie. Loews stocks pet potty supplies like pooper-scoopers and litter boxes. They also provide a “Puppy Pager” service that allows guests to get regular updates on their pooches via cell phone from Loews staffers when they're out of the room.

Many hoteliers will make room for pets, but traveling with your beloved four-legged family member isn't just about finding a hotel that accepts them. There are many factors to consider before dragging your family dog, cat, bunny rabbit, or guinea pig along for the ride.

The American Veterinary Medical Association website, www.avma.org, has tons of tips to help you prepare for a trip with pets. Chief among their suggestions is to plan carefully using the following steps:

  • Discuss your plans for pet travel with your veterinarian before you leave home.

  • Make sure your pet is comfortable traveling and will be able to handle constantly changing surroundings. Animals who get carsick or have physical impairments can have difficulty withstanding travel.

  • Make sure pets are allowed at all of your destination stops or that each place has kennel facilities.

  • Hang your “Do Not Disturb” sign on the hotel door anytime you're out of the room.

  • Inform hotel staff of your pet's presence.

  • Have your pet outfitted with an indentifying microchip before you leave home in case you become separated.

  • Make sure your pet's vaccinations are current.

  • The PetTravel.com website, www.pettravel.com, also has great information that if followed will ensure your pet arrives safe and happy to his destination. PetTravel.com also provides links to airline and pet passport forms among other similar resources. On PetTravel.com you can search by destination and region among tens of thousands of pet-friendly hotels and services in more than one hundred countries.

    1. Home
    2. Family Guide to Budget Travel
    3. Gas, Food, Lodging
    4. Traveling with Your Pet
    Visit other About.com sites: