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Your dog needs a holiday. Hell, your dog probably deserves one more than you do. They’ve had a punishing year of sleeping, terrorising the mailman and licking their own ass. The least you can do is take them somewhere nice.
Thankfully, a new ranking has done some sniffing around for us. Compare the Market has ranked Australia’s most dog-friendly holiday destinations, looking at the number of dog parks, veterinary clinics, pet-friendly hotels and dog-friendly cafés per 100,000 residents, along with annual rainfall and whether pets can fly in the cabin on selected routes.
As it turns out, your dog would very much like to go to the Sunshine Coast. The Queensland holiday favourite took out the top spot with an overall score of 7.4 out of ten, helped along by its impressive 54.46 pet-friendly hotels per 100,000 residents – the highest figure in the study. There are also more than 20 dog-friendly cafés and seven dog parks per 100,000 people, so your woofer can spend the weekend brunching at Ricky’s just like everybody else.
There’s also some great news for chihuahuas. The Sunshine Coast is one of only a handful of destinations in the ranking where dogs and cats under eight kilograms can travel in the cabin with their owners on selected Virgin Australia flights.
Hobart came in second place, with its relatively dry weather, plenty of dog parks and pup-friendly cafés, plus more than 19 veterinary clinics per 100,000 residents. Nobody is actively trying to visit the vet on holiday, but it’s nice to know there’s one on practically every corner should someone eat something they found under a table.
Queensland took out four of the top ten spots, with the Gold Coast in third, Townsville in eighth and Brisbane in ninth. Sydney came in last, which won’t surprise anyone who has ever tried to secure a rental there with their pooch in tow.
The most dog-friendly destinations in Australia:
- Sunshine Coast
- Hobart
- Gold Coast
- Melbourne
- Canberra
- Darwin
- Adelaide
- Townsville
- Brisbane
- Perth
- Sydney