The Well Worn Shoes

Wanderlust Welcome

  • Home
  • Start Here
    • About
    • Contact
    • Work With Me
    • Disclaimer
    • Affiliate Disclaimer
  • National Parks
    • Acadia
    • Yellowstone
    • Great Smoky Mountains
    • Grand Canyon
    • Utah National Parks
    • Badlands
  • Dog Friendly
  • Road Trips
    • One Day In Guides
    • Road Trip Itineraries
  • Destinations
    • United States
      • New England
      • Southwest
      • South
      • Mountain West
      • Midwest & Great Lakes
      • Mid-Atlantic
    • Canada
  • Gear
  • Shop

September 22, 2026

The Ultimate Dog Hiking Gear List For National Parks

Loki, Freya, and Caly on a Maine beach

Three dogs, 20+ National Parks, and a lot of trial and error. This is the dog hiking packing list I actually use every time we hit the trail, including the Acadia-specific add-ons that matter.

Hi! I'm Vanessa, a 30 something, sunset chasing traveler. I'm here to inspire you to travel wherever, whenever, and with whoever you can. My Huskies, Loki and Freya are usually along for the ride. I have a soul that likes to wander, a desire to experience the unknown, and a curiousity to discover things off the beaten path. I hope you'll stick around for awhile!

Join the List

Let's be friends! I know e-mails can suck but mine won't and I promise cute pup photos too!

Connect

Recent Posts

  • Fall Road Trip Packing List: What To Actually Bring
  • The Ultimate Dog Hiking Gear List For National Parks
  • The Ultimate New England Fall Road Trip: A Six-State Foliage Loop (2026)
  • The Girls Trip Guide to Bar Harbor & Acadia National Park
  • Acadia National Park October Guide: Fall Colors, Weather & What to Pack

Categories

  • Destinations
  • History
  • National Park Love

Reader Favorites

12 Fun Things To Do In Cape Breton Highlands

Acadia National Park

2026 National Parks Guide: New Fees, Reservation Systems & Timed Entry Explained

Stowe Vermont Fall Foliage Guide – Best New England Fall Day Trip

On the Blog

  • Destinations
  • History
  • National Park Love

Join the List

The Well Worn Shoes is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Connect

📰🗞️ It’s called Newspaper Rock, but there’s no hea 📰🗞️ It’s called Newspaper Rock, but there’s no headline. Just 2,000 years of people adding to the story.

Newspaper Rock, on the road into Canyonlands’ Needles district. Hundreds of figures carved into the desert varnish over roughly 2,000 years. Ancestral Puebloan, Fremont, Navajo, Ute, and people whose names we don’t have. Bighorn, riders on horseback (so some of these are after 1600), six-toed footprints. The Navajo name is Tse’ Hone, “rock that tells a story.”

It’s free. No hike. Most people take the photo and keep driving to the park. Stand there long enough and it stops being a photo op and starts being what it is: 2,000 years of people saying “I was here,” on land that was theirs before it was anyone’s park.

It’s worth remembering that the parks are on their land.

No touching, no chalk, no climbing the fence. 

✨✨Save this for your Utah trip✨✨
We took a random dirt road in Idaho with no plan, We took a random dirt road in Idaho with no plan, no destination, and 3 dogs who have opinions. Obviously, we had a great time. 😂

Mud Lake, Idaho. A two-track through the sagebrush, antelope in the distance, a sky that looked like that, and the Harvest Moon rising pink on the other side while we were still watching the sunset.

Not another person in sight. Nothing on the itinerary. Absolutely nowhere we needed to be.

And honestly? This is the whole point of living the lifestyle we do! But we we’ve been doing this since our 3rd date 💚🌲

The national parks are incredible. But some of our favorite memories happen on roads with no signs, no crowds, and no idea where we’re going.

Just us, the dogs, and a whole lot of dirt roads left to explore.

Want more of these little nowhere adventures? Because we’ve got a lot of dirt roads. 🤙
🏔️ Grand Teton and I had our second date yesterday 🏔️ Grand Teton and I had our second date yesterday. MUCH better than the first one in August 😂

The weather? Not exactly cooperating. Definitely not what most would consider ideal. But we decided to go anyway, because waiting for perfect conditions is a great way to miss the good stuff.

3.8 million people visit this park every year, and most show up June through September. We rolled through the second week of October and had  Oxbow Bend almost to ourselves under a storm.

A rainbow over the highway into Jackson. The Snake River with empty pullouts. A mule deer buck strolling through like he paid rent. (The rut is starting, and the boys are absolutely not thinking clearly.)

October means half the services are closed, the Jenny Lake shuttle is done, and snow is very much on the table. But trade the summer crowds for a little weather drama? I’ll take my chances.

Inner Park Road and Moose-Wilson Road (closed already) close for the season November 1, so there’s still time to catch the quieter side of the Tetons.

Save this for next October, or go this week. Just don’t wait for a perfect forecast. 🌈
Everyone on Mount Desert Island heads to Bass Harb Everyone on Mount Desert Island heads to Bass Harbor Light for sunset. I’d send you to the Quiet Side of the island, but not to Bass Harbor.

By the time the Bass Harbor crowd is jockeying for a spot on the rocks, you’ve had the harbor almost to yourself and you’re sitting on a ledge watching the boats.

Park at the Seal Harbor town beach lot (in marked parking only), walk the shoreline east, and don’t check the time. Dogs on leash are fine. Little Long Pond is five minutes up the road.

Bass Harbor Light is beautiful, but it gets so crowded they have Rangers parking people. If you still want to go to the lighthouse for sunset, make sure to get there 2.5 hrs early (at least). They park people up to half a mile from the lighthouse.

☀️✨Save this for your Acadia trip. The rest of my quiet-side sunset list is on the blog (link in stories). 

🛑🚫 As always, be respectful of the locals and please leave no trace in this beautiful space 🚫🛑
The four questions in my Salem DMs this week, answ The four questions in my Salem DMs this week, answered at once…

🍁 Can I drive? You can, but there isn’t much parking and what exists is gone by 9 am (on a good day), every day in October. The train from North Station, the ferry from Long Wharf, or a rideshare in early before the surge. On Halloween, nothing with wheels gets downtown after noon.

🍁 Is it too late to go? No, but know what you’re walking into. Salem gets busier every single week of October, and the last two weekends plus Halloween are the biggest crowds of the year. Going now: pick a weekday, be downtown by 8 am, and have your museum tickets before you leave the house. If you want Salem without the line, that’s spring, summer, or the first week of September. The town is just as witchy with nobody in it.

🍁 What’s open on Halloween, and when? Shops at 10 or 11. Streets close to cars at noon. Drone show at 10:10, clearing the streets at 10:30, last train 11:05. 

🍁 Blackcraft’s line is 200 people long. Where else for coffee? Jaho on Derby Street, roasts their own and opens early. Gulu-Gulu on Essex by the Bewitched statue, crepes and a dog-friendly patio. Front Street Coffeehouse, small and no scene. Coffee Time Bake Shop on Bridge Street, two minutes from the train, a 1940s bakery where the crullers are the point.

🛑🚫 🍁 One more thing nobody asks but everybody should hear: 45,000 people live here, and most of them are just trying to get to work, walk the dog, and park in front of their own house in October. Stay off the lawns, don’t block the driveways, keep it down after 10, and remember that the Hocus Pocus house has people in it. Be the visitor they’re glad came.

The week-by-week version of all of it is in the Ultimate Salem Guide ($) and the Salem In October Cheat Sheet ($). 

🍁🎃 Comment WITCH and I’ll send you the links 🔗
Follow on Instagram

Copyright © 2026 The Well Worn Shoes · Theme by 17th Avenue