This was a great week for interesting pet travel links! Hold on to your hats — here we go:

Through an Independent Minds article dated December 26 I learned about a useful site for identifying wonderful, dog-friendly places to stay around the world, including India, Kenya, Iceland — and that’s just scratching the surface. Check out Alastair Sawday’s site, and click on the “Search” tab to start dreaming (and planning!).

In a similar vein, a press release pointed me to a site called PetFriendlyRentals.co.uk, which does exactly what its name suggests. In the course of finding the .co.uk site, I also came across Pet Friendly Rentals, an apparently unrelated company offering the same kind of service in Australia.

The Bark published a tempting and informative article about snowshoeing with a dog (a reader suggests adding geo-caching to the mix, to give yourselves a fun goal). And speaking of winter sports, the Missoulian posted an article about a new, dog-friendly cross-country ski area near Lake Como, about an hour south of Missoula, MT.

After reading this week’s New York Times 36 Hours article (“36 Hours in Tucson, Ariz.“), I was sorry to learn that dogs are allowed only on roadways and in picnic areas in the Saguaro National Park. The park’s site does, however, provide an overview of other Tucson area parks and their pet policies, which will help you plan an alternative outing.

Speeding across the country, be sure to take a look at Fido Loves if you’re a Boston-area dog owner or are visiting Boston with your dog. I’m just starting to dig into this site/blog about dog-friendly places and activities in the Boston area, but I’ve really enjoyed the posts I’ve read so far.

And finally, here’s a video from www.petopia.tv about the importance of keeping your dog securely harnessed or contained in a car. This is a topic close to my heart, and I’ve written a couple of posts about it already, but a video gets the point across pretty vividly.