Unlike my late mother, who owned every single household power tool she could get her hands on and always bought the latest kitchen appliances, I have never been a sucker for a gadget. I don’t even buy the latest gizmos in the camping world to kit-out my caravan – she’s almost 30 years old and I quite like her back-to-basics vibe.
But when it comes to my dog – Arty is a five-year-old Manchester terrier – I love a gadget – and they can come in very handy when you’re caravanning with a dog too. If you’re selling something that’ll make him happier or my life with him easier, I’ll buy it. And I’m not the only one – myriad surveys over the past five years have charted pet-related spending, and one from 2022 by MoneySuperMarket showed that 70% of pet owners were willing to spend more on their pet than themselves.
An Insure Your Paws survey in 2024 also found that pet owners would rather spend money on our pets than on ourselves. Having spent six months on the road with Arty last year, I’ve mastered our dog-friendly camping packing list, so here are the essentials you should consider packing a caravan with for any adventure with your dog.
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1. Safety travel crate
We wear seatbelts for our safety, but what about the dog? The minimum legal requirement – a tether attached to their harness or collar – simply isn’t enough to keep them safe and could cause devastating injury in the event of a crash or even just an emergency stop.
That’s why, after several hundred miles of driving with dog-mum-guilt firmly attached to my soul, I invested in a Mimsafe travel crate (from £509): a crash-tested, solid cage that attaches to factory points in the boot of my caravan tow car, which should protect the dog in the event of an impact.
For those who can’t sacrifice that boot space, Tavo is an excellent new contender. After my car was retired to a garage for four months for warranty repairs last autumn, the Tavo Crispin travel crate came to the rescue.
It sits neatly on the back seats and cleverly attaches to the Isofix points, with the added security of an adapted seatbelt to keep it in place.
2. A tether and tie-out
Even the best dog-friendly caravan parks will have rules around dogs being tethered or kept on a lead, so you’re going to need a way of keeping your pooch on your pitch.
I use a corkscrew-style tie-out with a robust, waterproof 3m biothane longline from Love Your Furbabies, which doesn’t tangle and is perfect for beach trips if your dog doesn’t have reliable recall, too.
3. A windbreak pen
I’ve seen plenty of puppy pens put to use on campsites to create enclosed ‘gardens’ outside caravans and campervans, but with a dog as rambunctious as mine there’s no chance they’d stay in place around our pitch.
Instead, last year I procured some Isabella windbreaks (which can be found on a variety of retailers online, including Camping World) with a gate and Arty has been happily incarcerated ever since.
There are thick ground stakes that keep them upright and sturdy, they are opaque so he can’t bark at every single passing dog (always an important piece of campsite etiquette to follow), and the gate means I can come and go as I please without having to do the hurdles every time I need to nip out to the shower block.
4. A dog kennel
If a pen is too much faff and a tether too tangly, an excellent alternative is the Dometic dog kennel.
Entirely inflatable, it packs down to a small enough size to fit beneath the seats in the caravan and can be assembled in less than 60 seconds with an electric pump.
It has mesh sides with covers for night-time cosiness, and I can’t deny that it came in handy for both the dog and me to shelter from the sun on my last trip of summer in 2025 – it was big enough for us both!
5. A kibble carrier
Too many times have I packed the dog’s dinner into the car only to find the non-resealable bag has emptied itself into the footwell of the back seats, or that the plastic container has cracked and spilled out all over the boot.
And so now I travel with a Kurgo dog kibble bag, which has a roll-top closing system like a dry bag to keep the kibble, and its suspiciously fishy scent, inside at all times.
Its fabric material means it will fit in almost any caravan cupboard or crevice in the car.
6. A smart raincoat
Nobody likes the scent of a wet dog, especially in a space as small as a caravan. I rely on Equafleeces in the winter, which are so tightly woven that they’ve kept water from the wettest Scottish hikes away from Arty’s thin coat.
In summer, he is kept dry by a pair of lightweight raincoats: a Skinnydog Collective Dramac (£69, skinnydogcollective.com) which even has a hood; and a Non-stop Fjord raincoat (from £69.99, nonstopdogwear.com).
Alternatively, if your dog won’t wear a coat for walks, a drying coat such as the Mountain Paws dog robe is the next best thing.
7. A good book
The dog won’t be doing any holiday reading, but if you want an easy way to find brilliant days out and excellent walks, a dog-friendly travel guide might just come in handy for your travels in the caravan.
I’m the author of Dog Days Out: 365 Things To Do With Your Dog in the UK & Ireland and the new Dog-Friendly Europe: Epic Holidays For You and Your Hound, out 12 March (both £20, bloomsbury.co.uk), as well as Dog-Friendly Weekends.
But as they say on the BBC, other dog-friendly travel guides are available.
See what I have to say about solo caravanning too – it can be empowering, but it does have its downsides.
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