Luna is our latest interviewee. We were super excited to get this interview as Luna and her mom have traveled all over the world so offered us lots of tips!
Please tell us a little bit about yourself.
Luna Griffis is a full-time world-traveling pooch with a special love for big adventures (of course, when you’re 14 pounds, everything is kind of a big adventure). In 2012, Luna and her mom (Gigi Griffis) sold their stuff and took off around the world. You can follow their adventures at gigigriffis.com.
1. Tell us a little bit about where you have traveled with your family. Have you traveled internationally? Within the US?
Hi there! I’m Luna—a 14-pound Schnauzer-Yorkie mix traveling the world with my mom. I’ve been to 11 countries and four states so far. My mom and I actually traveled the world full-time (with no permanent address) for about a year and a half. This year, we settled into a little home base in the Swiss Alps where we can hike all the time (my favorite thing) and easily adventure through the rest of Europe.
2. What is your favorite place to travel? Do you like hiking the mountains? Running on the beach?
I love both. Give me a beach and I go insane zooming through the sand. Give me a mountain and I will turn excitedly in circles. Mom’s favorite place is the mountains, so we spend most of our time there. But anything natural is my element. The only thing I don’t love is cities (because cars are scary, people.)
Mom and I mostly travel in Europe and I’d say my favorite spots so far have been the Swiss Alps (where we’ve now got a visa for a whole year!) and the Black Forest in Germany (spooky!).
3. When you’re traveling do you camp? Stay at hotels? Rent houses?
We’ve done pretty much everything. While we were traveling full-time, mom mostly rented apartments
because she had to work (‘cause she’s boring like that) and it was better to stay longer in one place and have a quiet place to work.
For shorter trips, though, we’ve stayed in hotels, with friends, and even couchsurfed. And when mom brought me to the Swiss Alps last September we lived in a tent for almost a whole month (mom eventually got tired of it, but I thought it was way fun).
4. Do you have a hard time finding good quality food and water on the road?
Nope. I’ve got some allergies, so we always have to do hypo-allergenic dog foods, but mom always manages to find them. Instead of looking for the same brands or for the hypo-allergenic label, she reads ingredients and makes sure to always buy things with similar ones (at the moment, this means lamb and potatoes, no grain).
Sometimes, if we run out of food and she’s having trouble finding some, mom cooks me homemade meals. It rocks.
5. Have you had any problems with other dogs, either playing at dog parks, or street dogs when traveling?
Mom is pretty vigilant when it comes to noticing other dogs and their body language, so we mostly do okay. If she notices a street dog that looks territorial or something, we go a different way. But that doesn’t happen very often.
I did get bit pretty hard once in Germany by some random dog that was following us on the hiking trails. Mom picked me up and carried me until he left.
6. What don’t you like about traveling? A different bed? Strange water?
I’m pretty easy going. Mom trained me for therapy work (to work with kids in hospitals) when I was a baby, so I’m used to lots of different places, smells, people, etc. and I tend to settle in pretty easily with a new routine. I think the only thing I don’t like (anywhere, including when we lived in Denver) is traffic noise. If we get an apartment with lots of traffic noise, I’ll hide in my carrier sometimes.
I also learned this winter in Switzerland that I’m really uncomfortable with ski poles. Those things are scary, so I bark at them until they go away. Mom says it’s annoying, but I’ve totally protected her from their scariness, so she should be grateful.
Thanks so much, Luna for letting us get your take on life on the road. Check out more of her adventures on her mom’s website at gigigriffis.com, and their latest book:
http://gigigriffis.com/book/italy-100-locals-tell-you-where-to-go-what-to-do-and-how-to-fit-in/
Aspen & Porter