We rolled out our new pet friendly Road Trip Planner back in October, but it’s taken three months for us to get back on the road and put it to the test. If I must say so myself, it’s pawsome! We’re still making a few refinements, but the mapping capabilities make traveling with you pet a cinch.

Consider yesterday’s drive up the gulf coast of Florida from Naples to St. James City, via Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel:

Pet Friendly Restaurants are Red Dots

There were a lot of pet friendly restaurants along our route to choose from, and we decided on The Island Cow – it’s the red dot roughly in the middle of Sanibel Island, partially hidden by the blue dots. Boy, were we glad we did! The crunchy grouper tacos are fabulous.

Pet Friendly Activities are Blue Dots

The blue dots you see on the map mark the locations of pet friendly beaches (both on- and off-leash), a few off-leash dog parks, a state park with a dog swimming area, a couple of outlet malls where dogs can shop along with you, and a boat tour that welcomes well behaved, leashed dogs. Having this information before we took off made it really easy to pick our stops for bathroom breaks and to burn off a little (of Buster’s) energy.

Pet Friendly Campgrounds are Yellow Dots

Since we’re traveling in the Winnebago, we search for campgrounds. If you’re looking for hotels, it’s easy to plot those on the map instead. See that northern-most yellow dot in St. James City? It’s a very nice KOA campground where we’re laying our heads tonight. In a wonderful stroke of luck, there’s an open field where dogs are allowed to run off-leash, so Buster and I had an evening game of Chuck-It … meaning that we all slept well last night.