a cabin, a porch, and forest roads you drive yourself
A Dog Friendly Blue Ridge Vacation Package With Seven Nights Above The Parkway
This is the gentlest week we book: a dog friendly blue ridge vacation package where the whole property is yours, every overlook on the plan sits within a quarter mile of a pullout, and the car is your own.
Seven nights, from $1,940 per person.
Nothing here counts you and nothing follows you off the page. One word can be stored, and only the word yes, so this slip stops coming back. The whole of what that means.
The cabin sits at 3,180 feet, nineteen miles of two lane road from the nearest town of any size, and the last four of those miles have no cell service in either direction. That elevation is the whole point of the week. Down in the valley in July it runs in the low nineties by mid afternoon; on the porch it is usually fifteen degrees cooler, and the difference is what makes a dog friendly blue ridge vacation package workable in a Southern summer at all. People book this one when they want a week that asks almost nothing of anybody.
Seven nights, one property, no packing and repacking. You arrive on a Saturday, unload once, and the car stays where you put it except for the days you choose to drive. Most households who take this week end up driving on four of the seven days and spending the other three within sight of the porch.
The dog is not a passenger on this trip in any sense. There is no morning where somebody stays behind, no afternoon where the animal waits in a parked car, and no line item on the plan that quietly excludes a leash.
- How far the dog comes
- The dog is with you for all seven days, indoors and out, including every overlook, every forest road and the porch you will spend most evenings on.
- What is actually included
- Seven nights in a whole self catering cabin, two bedrooms, wood stove and covered porch, no shared walls and no shared entry; a written day by day plan with mileages and pullout names; a stocked kitchen on arrival with coffee, milk, eggs, bread and firewood; parkway and forest road routing for a passenger car; the property's own fenced yard confirmed in writing before you pay.
- What the dog is shut out of
- Nothing on this week is closed to the dog, and that is the reason it costs more than the city weeks. We checked it item by item: the cabin is a whole property with no shared corridor, the yard is fenced and private, all eleven overlooks and eight trails on the plan sit on national forest or parkway land where leashed dogs are permitted, and no visitor center, cave tour, tram or gated garden appears on the itinerary at all. There is no hour in the seven days where somebody has to wait in the car.
- What it does not include
- Airfare or rail to the region and any car rental; gas, tolls and parking; all meals beyond the arrival groceries; restaurant patios, which are the owner's call on the day and not ours to promise; laundry, firewood beyond the first bundle and any mid week cleaning; the cleaning fee and county lodging tax, both quoted as separate lines on your figure; anything to do with your dog's health or paperwork, which stays with your own veterinarian and is not arranged by this office.
- Who should not book this
- Anyone wanting nightlife, shops or a walkable town at the end of the driveway. The nearest grocery is fourteen miles down a two lane road with switchbacks, cell service drops out for the last four miles, and the driveway is gravel with a steep final pitch that a low clearance car will scrape in wet weather. If your idea of a week is eight mile days on ridgeline trails, book one of the harder pages instead. This is short walks and long afternoons.
A whole cabin, gravel roads, and eleven overlooks you can reach in ten minutes
The lodging is a two bedroom cabin you have entirely to yourself: your own door, your own driveway, no corridor, no lobby, no neighbor through the wall. Roughly 1,100 square feet, a wood stove, a full kitchen, and a covered porch that runs the length of the south side. The yard is fenced, about a third of an acre, four foot woven wire with a gate that latches. We confirm that fence in writing with the owner before we send you a figure, because a photograph of a fence is not the same as a fence.
The ground around it is national forest and parkway land, which is public, and leashed dogs are permitted on it. The plan we write for you names eleven overlooks, all of them within a quarter mile walk of a paved pullout, and eight trails between four tenths of a mile and two and a half miles. Elevation gain on the longest of them is about 480 feet, spread over the whole distance, on a graded surface. Nothing on that list involves ladders, scrambles or exposed rock.
The forest roads are the part people remember. There are about sixty miles of gravel service road within an hour of the cabin, most of it single lane with turnouts, and it is legal to drive and open to walking. A passenger car handles the graded sections in dry weather. After a hard rain the unmaintained spurs rut badly, and we mark on your plan which four to leave alone until things dry out.
from $1,940per person
- Behind the number
- The least this office has paid to put a party into this week during the past year, not a rate card.
- Counted how
- Per head, two sharing, one dog, and that dog's lodging supplement folded in here instead of appearing at the door.
- Pushes it up
- Taking a whole place rather than a room, bringing a second dog, a holiday week, a property that prices by the size of the animal, and deciding late.
- Goes firm
- The moment a property puts its own name to a written line saying it will take your dog on those exact dates.
You settle up with the property itself, through whatever system it happens to use. None of it routes through this office and no card is ever shown to anybody here.
The months this week is worth the money, and the months it is not
Late September through the first week of November is the strongest stretch: highs in the sixties, low humidity, and the ridge color running from about October 8 at the top elevations down through the last week of the month in the valleys. It is also the busiest, and cabins of this type get taken six to eight months ahead for those dates.
Summer is honest about its limits. Afternoon thunderstorms build over the ridges most days from mid June through August, usually between two and five, and they arrive fast enough that a two mile walk turns into a wet one. Mornings are the workable part of a July day. Winter is the cheap end for a reason: the parkway closes sections without much notice when ice forms, sometimes for a week at a stretch, and the closures are posted rather than predicted.
- Late September to early November
- Highs 58 to 70F, low humidity, color at elevation from about October 8; book six to eight months out
- Mid April to early June
- Highs 62 to 76F, everything green, the fewest closed road miles of the year
- Mid June to August
- Highs 78 to 86F on the ridge, humid, storms most afternoons between two and five
- December to February
- Highs 34 to 46F, wood stove weather, parkway sections close on ice with no warning and stay closed for days
- Mid March
- Mud. Gravel spurs are at their worst and the driveway is the worst of those
What gets fixed in writing before any money moves
Nothing is held on a phone call. Everything that matters about this week, the fence, the exact property, the arrival groceries and the four forest roads we tell you to skip, goes on paper before you pay anything, and the paper is what you hold us to.
- You writeTell us your dates, how many people, and one line about how far your dog actually walks in a normal day. A message is read the same working day
- We check the propertyWe confirm with the owner that the cabin is whole, the fence is standing and the gate latches, and we get the current cleaning fee and county tax as separate figures. This takes two to four working days
- You get the figurePer person, seven nights, with the two extra lines shown separately, plus the day by day plan naming the overlooks, the trails with their distances, and the roads to avoid
- You confirmThe property is held, the grocery list is set with your preferences, and we send driving notes for the last nineteen miles, including where the service drops
Lead with whatever you think will be a problem
The useful message is the specific one. How steep is the driveway, how far is the grocery, will a fourteen year old dog manage the trail to the second overlook. Write the thing you are actually worried about and we will answer it plainly, including when the answer is that this is the wrong week for you.