Dog Friendly Getaways From Ahmedabad: 3 Places, Honestly Assessed
3 places worth taking a dog from Ahmedabad, ordered by drive time, each with the month to avoid, the hazard that matters and where dogs cannot go.
From Ahmedabad the choice is heritage, desert or coast, and all three are winter trips. Between March and October the ground temperature is the whole story for a dog.
The drive is the part people underplan. A dog does not experience four hours in a car the way you do, and the difference between a three hour destination and an eight hour one is not twice the effort, it is a different kind of trip. So this is ordered by drive time rather than by how good the place is.
Within four hours of Ahmedabad
These are the ones you can leave after breakfast and arrive at before your dog gets restless. For a senior dog or a flat faced breed, this is the range to stay inside.
Udaipur, Rajasthan
About 4 hours from Ahmedabad. Beautiful in winter and genuinely dangerous for dogs in summer, when surfaces get hot enough to burn paws within seconds. Heritage properties often have stairs and courtyards rather than lifts.
- Best months: October to March. Worth avoiding April to June, because of extreme heat above 40C.
- Watch out for: extreme summer heat that burns paw pads, narrow lanes with traffic and cattle, stepped ghats.
- Someone stays back for: City Palace, Jagdish Temple.
- Suits: Short-coated breeds, and only in the winter months. This is a November to February destination with a dog.
- Stays: Grand Fatehsagar Udaipur, Mangal Hotel, Grand Udaipur Fateh Sagar Lake, all worth confirming directly before booking.
Do not visit with a dog between April and June. Surface temperatures in Rajasthan reach the point where paw pads burn within seconds, and the risk is not worth it whatever the hotel says.
Full detail, including vet access and what you can do together, is in our guide to Udaipur with a dog.
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Worth the longer drive
Everything below is five hours or more. Break the journey if you can, stop every two hours regardless, and travel on a light stomach because car sickness is the most common thing that ruins the first day.
Rann of Kutch, Gujarat
About 6 hours from Ahmedabad. The white salt desert is spectacular in winter and brutal outside it. Salt flats are hard on paws, and there is essentially no shade, so this is a short-visit destination with a dog.
- Best months: November to February. Worth avoiding March to October, because of extreme heat.
- Watch out for: salt crust that cracks and burns paw pads, and stings any existing cut, no shade at all on the flats, so heat exhaustion arrives fast even in winter afternoons, sharp temperature drops after sunset that catch out short-coated dogs.
- Someone stays back for: the Wild Ass Sanctuary in the Little Rann, Kala Dungar and the border viewpoints.
- Suits: Short-coated and desert-adapted dogs in December and January. Indies do noticeably well here.
- Stays: StayGuru Hari Om Residency, Desert Inn, Krishna Homestay Resort, all worth confirming directly before booking.
Rann Utsav runs from November to February and turns Dhordo into a small city with tens of thousands of visitors. If your dog is at all crowd-shy, go in early November or late February instead. You get the same Rann, the same cold clear nights, and about a tenth of the people.
Full detail, including vet access and what you can do together, is in our guide to Rann of Kutch with a dog.
Diu, Daman and Diu
About 8 hours from Ahmedabad. Quieter beaches than Goa with far fewer crowds. Same beach cautions apply: hot sand in the middle of the day, and sea water that upsets stomachs.
- Best months: October to March. Worth avoiding April to June, because of heat and humidity.
- Watch out for: hot sand between 11am and 4pm, which burns pads even on mild days, sea urchins and sharp limestone on the rocky shore sections, sandflies at dusk on the quieter beaches.
- Someone stays back for: Diu Fort interior and the museums, the managed water sports zone at Nagoa.
- Suits: Almost anything between November and February. Water-loving breeds get more out of Diu than out of Goa, because the beaches are emptier and the sea is calmer.
- Stays: Dream Vision Guest House, Apana Hotel, Grand Highness, all worth confirming directly before booking.
Diu is what Goa was thirty years ago and it is a quarter of the distance from Ahmedabad. Stay at Ghoghla rather than Nagoa. Nagoa is where the tour buses stop, Ghoghla is a longer and emptier beach, and you can walk a dog off lead there at 7am without meeting anyone.
Full detail, including vet access and what you can do together, is in our guide to Diu with a dog.
Before you book anything
Two things decide whether a trip works, and neither is the destination. The first is the month. Several places above are genuinely unkind to a dog in the wrong season, and the difference is not comfort, it is safety. The second is where you are staying, because pet policies in India are set per property and change with the owner, so a place that welcomed dogs last year may not this one. Call and get the pet permission added to your booking confirmation in writing.
If you are taking the train rather than driving, read the rules for taking a dog on an Indian train first. Dogs are barred from 2AC, 3AC and Sleeper, which catches out almost everyone, and the parcel office step has to happen on the day.
And if you would rather not plan it yourself, our trip planner will build a day by day plan for your dates, your dog and how you are travelling, and email it to you.
The unglamorous part
A dog who will not go to the toilet in a strange place holds it far longer than is good for them, and a long drive followed by an unfamiliar room is exactly that situation twice over. Carrying a familiar surface from home is the single easiest fix, which is the reason we make a portable coir potty.