{"id":35315,"date":"2025-08-16T18:36:24","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T22:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/?p=35315"},"modified":"2025-09-05T14:00:21","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T18:00:21","slug":"petfreehotels-the-inside-scoop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/2025\/08\/petfreehotels-the-inside-scoop\/","title":{"rendered":"Pet-Free Hotels: The Inside Scoop"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Note from Self<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

I was surprised to notice that it has been three years<\/a> since I launched my hobby website, PetFreeHotels.com<\/a> — it feels like half that time.\u00a0 I thought I might take a moment, with your indulgence, to share various morsels and tidbits from the endeavor.<\/p>\n

To recap, PetFreeHotels.com grew out of my searches for hotels in the cities where our families live which, for my spouse’s sake, do not allow pets.\u00a0\u00a0One of us (I won’t say who) thought we could make money producing a pet-free hotel listing website.\u00a0 The other of us saw that more as a programming challenge than a productive economic venture.<\/p>\n

The other of us was right, but I went ahead with it anyway.<\/p>\n

I will say at the outset that the idea would have been moot if (a) my spouse did not have pet allergies or (b) if even one hotel booking site offered a pet-free checkbox next to the ubiquitous pet-friendly checkbox.\u00a0 The latter is only a matter of time, and it will be the signal for me to close the shutters on PetFreeHotels.com.<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\u00a0<\/p>\n

Websites are pretty much the last arena where 20th-century software hobbyists like me can still dabble, thanks mainly to the WordPress platform<\/a>. \u00a0The 100 Billionth Person<\/em> (the blog that you and 34 others are now reading), ART @ CHC<\/em><\/a> (my rarely-visited photo site) and Pet-Free Hotels<\/em> (consulted by 450-500 people a week) each have very different looks and functionality, but I built all of them with WordPress.<\/p>\n

More accurately, I built them with WordPress plus countless “how do I do x” look-ups on Stack Overflow<\/a>.\u00a0 That was the go-to tool for amateurs like me in the Pre-AI Era.\u00a0 Now, AI just hands you the code needed for the task at hand<\/a>, whether you’re a grey-whisker coder or work for Microsoft, Meta or Google.<\/p>\n

While I have yet to use AI-generated code in my sites, I do admit to copying code posted by contributors to Stack Overflow, code I haven’t taken time to fully understand but will use if it’s easy to incorporate and it works.\u00a0 Notably, such borrowed code forms the basis for the search-a-city feature on PetFreeHotels.com.\u00a0 Although I put lots of my own time into that feature, its core code came from someone else, and who knows where he\/she copied that <\/em>from, not that I’m asking.<\/p>\n

So a software purist I am not… but I digress, one of only a host of my usual digressions.<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\u00a0<\/p>\n

Out of a sense of duty to my visitors, I held off promoting PetFreeHotels.com until I had amassed 1000 pet-free listings — but even that figure averages to only 20 hotels per state, scattershot coverage by any measure.\u00a0 To make early user visits worthwhile, I first focused on the most popular U.S. destinations: New York City, San Fransisco, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Las Vegas, Disneyland, and Orlando.\u00a0 I also searched for pet-free hotel listings near hallowed American icons: Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Smoky Mountains, The Alamo.<\/p>\n

This served to get PetFreeHotels.com off the ground, but my gut-feel told me that the site wouldn’t be legit until it had 2000 listings, and not all that useful until I hit 3000.\u00a0 And so I went to work.<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\u00a0<\/p>\n

How does one find a pet-free hotel?\u00a0 It depends, because the exact wording of pet policies varies from brand to brand.\u00a0 Marriott makes it easy — my search phrase for Marriott hotels (Courtyard, Fairfield, Sheraton, SpringHill, and others<\/a>) is site:marriott.com “pets not” location<\/em>, where you replace location<\/em> with the desired destination.\u00a0 Best Western also has a reliable search phrase: site:bestwestern.com “not accepted” location.<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some corporate hotels hide their pet policies on pop-up windows (Choice, Wyndham) or drop-down text (IHG), silly obstacles in the way of assessing a hotel’s pet-friendliness.*\u00a0 My take is that this is done for a reason, because corporations do everything for a reason.\u00a0 I learned that I just have to bite the bullet and put “no pets”<\/em> in the search phrase for these chains and hope my time is not wasted sifting out pet-friendly sites.\u00a0 It was a big help learning the pet-friendly brands I can ignore (this cat is giving you<\/em> the cold shoulder, Sonesta, Red Roof Inn and La Quinta!)<\/p>\n

I search for independent hotels using the phrase hotel location “pets not”<\/em>\u00a0 (or\u00a0“<\/em>no pets”<\/em>) followed by a long string of “exclude this term” items such as rentals<\/em>, condos<\/em>, hotels.com<\/em>, expedia.com<\/em>, bringfido.com<\/em> and the like.\u00a0 The return on this investment is pretty low: independents tend to be pet-friendly and many don’t even bother posting a pet policy, but I feel like I owe it to users to offer some choices beyond the corporate brands.<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\u00a0<\/p>\n

As of today, there are 3156 hotel listings on PetFreeHotels.com.\u00a0 Although I ensure each and every entry is “pet-free” when I add it to my database, I find that the listings degrade over time.\u00a0 Hotels close, change hands, change brands, and\/or change their pet policies.\u00a0 The down-range class of hotels seem especially volatile in that regard — I suspect owners become more permissive toward pets when they’re trying to balance their books.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, hotels don’t notify me when they change pet policies — which means that I have to periodically re-verify them all<\/em>, state by state.\u00a0 While this takes time away from my expanding the database, think of the visitor experience: what good is a pet-free hotel site if 10%\u201315% of the listings are pet-friendly, re-branded, or closed?\u00a0 I would like my listings to be 98% accurate but, given the amount of churn I see, that will be hard to sustain.<\/p>\n

I’m in the process of doing a full site review now — in the past four weeks, I’ve done about one-third of the states, starting with the most-visited.\u00a0 These represent about three-fifths of the listings.\u00a0 It’s a rather mindless task:\u00a0 I treat it like knitting (not that I ever knitted), something I can do in odd moments while I’m pretending to be productive.<\/p>\n

Hopefully I’ll finish the review next month and then wait a year to do it all over again.<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’ll close this fascinating account with a few statistics for the insatiably curious:<\/p>\n

\u2022 What are the most-visited (and least visited) states on Pet-Free Hotels?<\/em><\/p>\n

Over the past 60 days, the most popular states (based on page views, not users) have been Tennessee (561), Florida (507), North Carolina (429), California (355), and Georgia (299).\u00a0 These states, led by Florida, typically comprise the top five over any extended time frame.\u00a0 Virginia, Pennsylvania, Texas, New York and South Carolina usually round out the top ten. (I didn’t expect Pennsylvania.)<\/p>\n

The ten least-viewed states were Arkansas, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Vermont, North Dakota, Delaware, Wyoming, Connecticut, Mississippi and West Virginia; West Virigina had 43 views in the last 60 days and Arkansas a mere 12.\u00a0 No surprise here: other than Hawaii, these states aren’t the first ones that come to my mind as big draws for pet-averse travelers.<\/p>\n

I am only able to cite these figures because I had the foresight to dedicate a separate page to each state in my WordPress website.\u00a0 This makes it easy for Google Analytics to report visitor totals on a statewise basis, which helps me focus on the most popular states.<\/p>\n

\u2022 So, how much money am I making on this?<\/em><\/p>\n

I have a two-part answer.\u00a0 Regards the first part, I allow Google to place one AdSense ad (whose content I do not control) on each page that lists 8 or more results.\u00a0 Oftentimes, Google misfires and inserts an ad for pet products or services — just what my visitors are looking for!<\/p>\n

While I have never been impressed with Google’s ad choices, Google thinks my ad-views are worth $7\u2013$9 a month, depending on clicks.\u00a0 Over a year’s time, that would pay for a one-night stay at the Red Roof Inn in Washington, D.C. (two pets allowed, first one free).<\/p>\n

As to the second part, I also display a “Buy Me A Coffee<\/a>” appeal when the search yields 20 or more results.\u00a0 (Because how dare I ask for money if you only see 2 EconoLodges and a Microtel!)\u00a0 “Buy Me A Coffee” donations from kind supporters have totaled $84 in the last 6 months.\u00a0 This had paid the cost of the petfreehotels.com domain name and hosting the website, with some money left over for more generous tips to restaurant servers and fast-food workers.<\/p>\n

\u2022 How much time am I putting into this so-called hobby?<\/em><\/p>\n

You don’t want to know — which really means I<\/em> don’t want to know.\u00a0 There’s obviously an opportunity cost here, in that activities like music, photography, reading, writing and my household to-do list have taken a back-seat, because I’m busy with PetFreeHotels.com.<\/p>\n

But right now, given the events of the year, I’m happy just doing my knitting.<\/p>\n

_________<\/p>\n

* As comedian Mitch Hedberg<\/a> observed about double-wrapped Pepperidge Farm bread: “I don’t need another step between me and toast.”<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Note from Self I was surprised to notice that it has been three years since I launched my hobby website, PetFreeHotels.com — it feels like half that time.\u00a0 I thought I might take a moment, with your indulgence, to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notes-from-self"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35315"}],"version-history":[{"count":75,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35404,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35315\/revisions\/35404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}