Pets as tourists in Slovenia: Can I join your tour with my dog?
We’ve been getting more and more questions about whether you can bring your pet on our cycling or hiking tours – so far you’ve only asked about dogs. Let’s briefly explain what experience we have with this.
Three members of the Visit GoodPlace team have dogs. One of them, a calm border collie named Blue, is even in our office regularly. That’s why we understand very well when you ask if you can take a dog on one of our cycling or hiking tours. As far as we are concerned for all self-guided or tailor-made tours, the answer is clear: of course you can! But it doesn’t end here.
First: it’s YOU who must make sure that your furry friend is able to do the tour, and that neither the animal nor you will have problems on the tour. What does that mean? It’s very clear in the case of hiking tours: the dog must be able to walk the entire day’s stages – which should not be a problem for most animals – or you must provide a suitable backpack (no, we don’t have one for rent). We think it’s pretty clear that dogs are not welcome on wildlife-watching tours. We doubt that the dog will be quietly waiting at the lookout when a bear is walking down below.
For cycling, it is a bit more complex – you need to make sure you have a suitable trailer or trunk, depending on the size of the animal. Nope, we don’t have that in our offer yet – for now.
But there is another factor that we cannot influence: accommodation. Dogs are welcome in some places, in some places they are strictly not, and in other places they were welcome in past, but because of bad experiences, they just don’t want to hear about dogs anymore. Sometimes, when making a reservation, we are asked “How big is this dog?” or “It won’t sleep in bed, right?”. In short, we cannot give you a clear answer until we make a detailed inquiry for a specific tour at a specific time. Also, because we don’t always sleep in the same hotels/B&Bs/homestays – it depends on the time of year and availability.
At this particular moment (spring 2023) we can tell you that we have a confirmed furry member for one Bike Slovenia Green: Alps to Adriatic. So, the answer to the question in the article’s title is: YES, you can, BUT … Read the whole article again 🙂
Thank you for your understanding,
Matevž from Visit GoodPlace
