Traveling with Fido

One long-overdue guidebook has finally debuted, another has been revised, and for Northwest RVers who enjoy a dip in a hot springs, we now have a guidebook to point them in the right direction for a soothing soak.

Camping and RVing with a Dog
It’s about time someone wrote this book. Until now, every guidebook on traveling with a dog has focused on traveling with Fido by car and staying in hotels and motels. This new one is aimed squarely at RVers and to a lesser degree other campers. Authors Jack and Julee Meltzer travel full time in a Class A motorhome with two large dogs and three cats.

The book has a whole lot of advice and useful information, plus a comprehensive directory of campgrounds and RV parks that welcome furry creatures of the best-friend kind. The advice is terrific—how to organize your RV to make life easier and safer for your dog, how to prepare for long vacations, and how to deal with highway emergencies

Learn about coping with strange places, harsh environments, shrewd predators and challenging situations. Get expert advice on finding your dog if it gets lost, dealing with poisonous snakes, and treating incessant barking. And very important, get step-by-step instructions about how to handle most pet-related medical emergencies.

More than 30 million families take their dogs camping each year—and that’s a lot of canines out there in the campgrounds mingling with humans, other dogs, strange plants and even the occasional wild creature that wanders in late at night.

Yet, even with all the valuable advice in the book, perhaps the best part is the extensive directory of campgrounds that welcome pets

Guide to Free Campgrounds, East
Don Wright’s two guidebooks to free and inexpensive campgrounds are the bible for RVers on a budget. His western guide was updated in 2004, and he’s now followed with a new eastern edition. The new guide lists virtually every campground in the East (including Missouri, Louis-iana, Iowa and Arkansas) where you can stay for free or under $12.

This is a “must-have” directory for budget-minded RVers and other campers who want to save money on camping. Wright lists campgrounds operated by state fishing agencies and state parks, the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, the Corps of Engineers, regional and local utility companies, county parks, and more. He lists perhaps a couple hundred small town city parks where RVers are permitted to stay for free or practically nothing for a night (or longer in most cases). Some campsites include hookups.

Some of the campgrounds are far off the beaten path, making them not only great bargains, but places where a camper can find solitude. But the greatest beneficiaries of the information in this guidebook will be RVers who are on the road a lot and looking to save a dollar here or there.

Touring Washington and Oregon Hot Springs
Whether you’re searching for a family hot springs resort or an isolated natural soaking pool, Touring Washington and Oregon Hot Springs will guide you to a truly memorable geo-thermal experience. Thirty-three of the best hot springs in the Pacific Northwest are profiled.

You can relax in the steamy pools at Sol Duc Hot Springs nestled in the Northern Hemisphere’s only temperate rain forest, soak in splendid isolation surrounded by endless sagebrush prairie at Willow Creek Hot Springs in southeastern Oregon, or enjoy a healing mud bath on the shores of mineral-rich Soap Lake in central Washington. Inside you’ll find descriptions of each soaking location, easy-to-read maps and clear directions, suggestions for the best times to visit, and historical information on the areas.