Travel Advice: Dog friendly holidays

Travelling with your dog can make holidays all that more enjoyable. The family pet is just as much in need of a change of scenery as you. Finding accommodation that is dog-friendly can involve a lot of research and ringing around.

There are websites that can short circuit that time-consuming exercise and help you find the right place to stay. A long-standing place to begin a search for accommodation in Ireland is Georgina Campbell’s ireland-guide.com

There are 100 places that will welcome your dog ,from bed and breakfasts and guesthouses, to country mansions and five-star hotels. There is also a top 10 of pet-friendly places.

Ireland's Blue Book, (irelands- blue-book.ie) is a listing of some very nice country houses which also has a pet-friendly section. Eleven properties around the country welcome dogs. Trident Holiday Homes has a section for such self-catering properties, tridentholidayhomes.ie

A new arrival website is woofadvisor.com, which hopes to identify not just properties where dogs are welcome but also restaurants, parks, beaches and stopping points when travelling. Members of Woofadvisor. com can add reviews and suggestions for new places to stay or see.

In Northern Ireland, the tourism board has a dog-friendly scheme, where owners are encouraged to list their properties. There are more than 100 listed on discovernorthernireland.com, scroll down to the Me and My Pet section.

Some properties will charge a fee when a dog stays while some places do not charge at all. Check before you book. There is a similar website in Britain to help you find suitable accommodation, Dogfriendlybritain.co.uk. The listings include not just hotels and guesthouses, but also self-catering, cottages, holiday parks and camping grounds.

jscales@irishtimes.com