doodlebugg

My husband and I are looking for a dog friendly hotel in either Napa or Sonoma. We are only passing through one night during a fierce road trip, so I'd like to stay in a cute town with good restaurants. I've heard St. Helena is a nice town to stay in. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

cmcfong

www.petswelcome.com and www.dogfriendly.com provide listings of pet friendly lodgings. La Quinta Inns also welcome pets.
Fierce road trip sounds interesting, have fun.

SusanMargaret

Have a look at "The Dog Lovers Companion to California" by Maria Goodavage. We used the The Dog Lovers Companion to Florida recently and found it really helpful. It gave us lots of good ideas for keeping our dogs happy - dog friendly beaches, restaurants, places to stay, etc. The California version gets excellent reviews.

LLindaC

doodle- we've stayed in the area 4 times over the last 4 years. At almost any time, driving through Napa on the main drag is very slow. St Helena is a charming town, but it's smack dab in the middle and if you are on a fierce road trip, expect a crawl. What kind of lodging are you looking for and your budget? The Best Western Dry Creek Inn in Healdsburg is dog friendle and Healdsburg is a GREAT town.Wonderful restaurants, lots of nice shopping, charm. The hotel is basic, but very reasonable. It's also right off 101 so the driving is a piece of cake. It's only a mile from the center of town, an easy walk or very short drive. There's even a bus that drives into town right by the hotel.I much prefer Sonoma over Napa overall. The traffic's not an issue in most places, the roads/drives are beautiful and everything is well marked. Not so in Napa.

doodlebugg

These are terrific suggestions, thanks to all. We're definately looking into Headlsburg now. We're on a tight budget for our road trip, moving from San Diego to Massachusetts for a new job so we decided to make it a cross country drive. We'll be on our way to visit relatives in the Eureka area when we stop in wine country. We figured it was a good place to stop since we've frequented the Bay area but never wine country. We're also hitting Jackson Hole, WY, Mt. Rushmore in SD, Minneapolis, Chicago, Indiana and Niagra Falls in NY. I'm planning to blog so I'll give you guys the link once I set it up if you're interested.
Happy Trails! Thanks again for the info.
I know there are a lot of posts here about wine country restaurants, but do any of you have a MUST visit for our one night there? We can splurge on dinner, up to $100 for two people.

LLindaC

In Healdsburg my absolutely favorite restaurant is Willi's Seafood. They serve tapas-style small plates and it's a casual and fun atmosphere. I also loved the Dry Creek Kitchen and Manzanita, but Willi's still tops my list. You can make a reservation ahead of time on opentable.com ( a cool thing)
http://www.willisseafood.net/index_seafood.html