How it works

Paw Stops takes the two things a road trip with an animal actually depends on — how long you're in the car each day, and where you can safely stop — and makes them the centre of the plan instead of an afterthought.

From address to itinerary

  1. Tell it where you're going

    Enter a start, a destination and your dates. No account, no email, no card.

  2. It routes the real road

    The route comes from OSRM using actual road geometry and travel times, not straight-line distance. You can override the assumed highway speed if you drive slower than the software expects — towing, an older van, or a dog who needs the windows down.

  3. It splits the drive humanely

    You set a ceiling in hours or miles per day. The planner honours that ceiling rather than dividing the total evenly, so a 2,700-mile trip becomes five sane days instead of four brutal ones. If your dates don't fit your cap, it says so and offers a gentler pace rather than silently overdriving you.

  4. Each night gets pet-friendly hotels

    At every overnight anchor it looks up nearby hotels and keeps only those that accept dogs. A green "Pet OK" badge means Google Places explicitly reports the property allows dogs; an amber "Likely pet OK" means it was inferred from the chain's published policy. The two are never blended, because the difference matters when you arrive at 10pm.

  5. Each day gets dog stops

    Dog parks, rest areas, parks and pet stores near the day's route, ranked so a fenced off-leash dog park outranks a pet store, with distance and amenities like fencing and drinking water where OpenStreetMap records them. Every stop links straight to directions.

  6. Weather at your actual arrival time

    Forecasts are sampled roughly every 100 miles along the route and matched to the time you'll reach each point — not today's weather at your house. Temperatures dangerous for a dog left in a car are flagged, along with the hottest point of the day.

  7. It adapts when the day doesn't go to plan

    Running late, stopped early, or want to wrap up in two hours? Replan the remaining days from where you actually are. Previous versions are kept, so you can switch back.

What makes this different from a general trip planner

  • Pet-friendliness is a hard filter, not a checkbox. Hotels that can't be confirmed or strongly inferred as dog-friendly are dropped before ranking, rather than shown with a warning.
  • The daily drive cap is a real constraint. Most planners divide a route evenly; this one refuses to exceed the limit you set and tells you honestly when your dates don't fit.
  • Heat risk is treated as a safety feature. The temperature that decides whether a dog can be left in a car for five minutes is highlighted, not buried in a forecast table.
  • Stops are ranked by what they offer an animal. A fenced dog park with water is not the same as a truck-stop plaza, and the app doesn't pretend otherwise.
  • It works on the road. Your itinerary is cached on the device, so a saved plan still opens in a dead zone.

Where the data comes from

Every source is free or paid for by us, and named openly so you can judge how much to trust a given detail:

  • Routing and road geometry: OSRM, built on OpenStreetMap data.
  • Place search and address lookup: Nominatim, also OpenStreetMap.
  • Dog parks, rest areas, parks and pet stores: the Overpass API over OpenStreetMap. Coverage and detail vary by area, because this is volunteer-maintained data.
  • Hotels, ratings and the verified pet-friendly signal: Google Places.
  • Weather: the U.S. National Weather Service.
  • Map tiles: OpenStreetMap contributors.

Because points of interest come from OpenStreetMap, a stop's amenities are only as complete as the last person who mapped it. Paw Stops shows what is recorded and doesn't invent the rest.

Coverage and limits

  • Built and tested for road trips within the United States. Weather forecasts are U.S.-only, as they come from the National Weather Service.
  • Driving routes only. No flights, trains or ferries.
  • Hotel availability and prices are not checked in-app; the booking link takes you to live availability on Expedia.
  • Pet policies change. Always confirm fees and size limits with the property before you rely on them.