It’s almost travel season and our poor camper has been just hanging out in the side yard all winter. 🙁 One of the reasons we purchased our travel trailer is because we want take our dogs everywhere! The cost of boarding them every time we vacation is pricey for all three of them and we simply love having them travel with us. There are a few things we’ve found that make our lives easier while camping with multiple dogs.

Portable Crates: Our dogs are still young and love their “beds.” We want them to feel as comfortable as possible while we’re in our home away from home. We bring along these pop-up crates and love them! They’re super easy to set up and they fold flat to store away when not in use.

Dog Parks: Our dogs are free roamers in our backyard at home and we seldom take them on leash walks. Leashes are required in most campgrounds, so having a safe place to roam and play free is a definite plus. The dog park at Disney’s Ft. Wilderness Campground has been my favorite so far! It’s large and grassy with automatic water bowls. Our dogs loved it there!

Feeding: I try to pack as light as possible for our trips, especially for long weekends. I will often pre-portion dog food into gallon-sized freezer bags instead of bringing the large bag of food. On one of our first long trips last year, I miscalculated the amount we needed and we ran out of food. Luckily, there was a local feed store that carried our brand. I’m much more careful about how much dog food to pack now, especially since we have home delivery from Chewy. But, I also research the closest store to our destination that carries our brand just in case.

Baths: If we take our dogs to the beach, they’ll most likely need to be rinsed off at some point. Well, Annie has to be rinsed off each time because she thinks sand is delightful (see below)! Our camper’s shower is pretty small and campgrounds don’t appreciate dogs in the bathhouse. With our first camper we brought along an expandable hose like this one to spray off the dogs. Now that we’ve upgraded and have an outdoor shower, it really comes in handy!

Keeping your trailer clean: If you have big dogs like ours, they probably don’t know how to properly drink water without drooling it all over the floor. There’s nothing like walking into water puddles right after you put your socks on! Thankfully, LLBean’s Waterhog Mats are a big help! Also, instead of using a water bowl like we do at home, we bring a taller 2 gallon bucket which helps keep the schlepping down to a minimum.

Our Dyson Cordless Vacuum  comes along with along with us on trips. It fits great in our pantry closet and can hold a charge for a long weekend getaway. I have tried almost every brand of cordless vacuum, but this one is incredible and completely worth the price! It gets up every ounce of sand!

No matter how you do it, I hope you get the chance to travel with your pets! Ours love being on the road and our family isn’t complete without them!