FUJI ON TOUR

Dog Friendly Travels, Hikes, and Eateries

Ready to emBARK on a PAWtastic Journey?

Some of my favourite memories with Mommy!

CITY BREAKS

I also like to be pampered sometimes! Here I can recommend you some of the best dog friendly pubs, restaurants (even Michelin starred ones!), and hotels.

CAMINO DE SANTIAGO

Come with me as I recount some of my favourite moments as we criss-crossed through Spain following this ancient pilgrimage route to the tomb of St James the Great in Santiago de Compostela.

HIKING ADVENTURES

I also like to sniff and explore the natural world! From local hikes to some pawesome landmarks in Europe, Mommy likes to drive and I’m her best co-pilot!

Our Latest Adventures

Part 3 of Highlights from the Welsh Camino Series: spectacular coastal views

On the Edge: Exploring Wales’ Stunning Coastal Pathway

Part 2 of Highlights from the Welsh Camino Series: exploring the old stone church in Llangelynin, Penmaenmawr ancient stone circles, and the dramatic Aber Falls

Discovering Ancient Wonders & Dramatic Waterfalls

Part 1 of Highlights from the Welsh Camino Series: Finding Peace in the Welsh Countryside, exploring meditation garden in Tremeirchion and discovering the first Welsh bible in St Asaph

Finding Peace in the Welsh Countryside

Who is Fuji?

A little bit about me…

Read on for the ultiMUTT dog friendly travel guide

LABRADOR

All you need is love and a labrador

Read on for the ultiMUTT dog friendly travel guide

peRRegrina

Pilgrim hiker on four paws

Read on for the ultiMUTT dog friendly travel guide

GOURMANDE

Ravenous epicurean!

Resources

We have put together these travel tips and guides to help you create a purr-fect travel plan!

The ultimate guide to travelling in Europe with a dog, look no further, click here for your FREE guide!

The Ultimate Guide to Travelling in Europe with a Dog

How to do the Camino de Santiago with a dog? Is it possible? Where does the dog sleep? How do you carry the dog food? Here we tell you everything you need to know.

Guide to Walking the Camino de Santiago with a Dog

Camino Primitivo with a dog - an overview

Camino Primitivo with a Dog – Overview

fujiontour

Labrador 🐶 peRRegrina
🎂 August 2020
❤️ Food, sea, mountains

Happy Earth Day 🌎🌱 Of course, it’s not ju

Happy Earth Day 🌎🌱

Of course, it’s not just one day, everyday should be Earth Day, just as everyday should be Valentine’s Day (that’s what my Mommy says 🐶). This year we are trying to be conscious with everything we consume, buying in bulk, reducing disposable (plastic!!) packaging, recycling/upcycling/skipdiving items, repairing/fixing broken shoes, backpacks, handbag…

In 2021 we had a fun weekend building a raised bed with friends and we had a good harvest! Then life (💩) happened and the patch was neglected.

This year we cleared out the space, Mommy bought some bird/insect net, and hopefully we can have an even bigger harvest! Also because our dehydrator machine is ready to preserve any leftover fruits and vegs!

And to reduce my plastic use 🐶💩 Mommy made a compost hole! The blue barrel was collected from recycling point. So far it’s looking pretty good.

#earthday #earthday2024 #earthdayeveryday #recycling #dogpoocomposter #compost #gardening

Hiking Colombia’s Nevado del Tolima - Day 4: Par

Hiking Colombia’s Nevado del Tolima - Day 4: Paramillo del Quindio

As an encore to yesterday’s 5000m glacier, today we climbed yet another mountain in the Parque Nacional Natural los Nevados. The peak stands at 4760m and was covered in snow up until about 50 years ago. Now it started to be populated by vegetations giving it a unique appearance, a splash of colours in the paramo!

We had a “lie in” (nos quedamos en cama) until 5AM, what a luxury! That was 7h MORE than yesterday 😝. After another hearty breakfast, we left Finca La Playa. As a parting gift, we watched the sunrise over Nevado del Tolima. It was a beautiful clear morning and the first time we could see the peak of Tolima from the Finca since we got here a few days ago.

After 5 km, we started climbing properly 😝 ascending more than 400 m in 2 km (20% gradient), thanks Suunto watch for recording every minute statistics! It was also sandy with loose rocks, very slippery. But less dangerous than Tolima which was slippery but with bigger rocks with sharp edges mixed in with the small pebbles.

We reached the crest and continued walking along the ridge to the summit (4760m). It was really really beautiful. We had awesome weather and from the crest we had 360 degree of fantastic scenery. So beautiful. And we were totally alone!!! Just 5 of us Power Rangers 😜

We were a lot more relaxed today, so after taking various photos and videos at the summit until I started to feel cold, we decided to descend, and within 5 minutes the clouds came in and covered the top half of the mountain for the rest of the day! We had coffee, second breakfast, and about an hour later a proper lunch - they even made me a rice box from the Finca! Mil gracias 🥰

After lunch we carried on walking in the valley following a stream, so here the terrain was pretty similar to the UK, spongy boggy grass, and the gorse plant had even made it across the Atlantic! It was everywhere! It felt like I was walking in the Lake District 🤪

#solotravel #solofemaletraveler #solofemaletravel #hiking #hikingadventures #colombia #visitcolombia #salento #cocoravalley #nevadodeltolima #parquescolombia #parquenacionaldelosnevados #glaciarhiking

Hiking Colombia’s Nevado del Tolima - Day 3: to

Hiking Colombia’s Nevado del Tolima - Day 3: to the summit (ish!) of Nevado del Tolima

For the next 2 days I really owed it to my awesome crew: Andrés (@vagandoenlibertad) who was always so efficient and pushed me to pack, sleep, hike, repeat… I mean we had a pretty crazy schedule to stick to! And I took ages to get ready, even at 4000m with minimal backpack, I still took my time 🤪 Jeferson (@jeferramirezb) who was just super funny! Made me laugh even when I was dying of starvation (literally had ketone in my breath, told you I was always hungry) or exhaustion. And of course our guide Alejo (@aleguva3) who secretly knows how to speak English but he’s rather keep it a secret 🤫

Omg tonight was just super tough. Climbing all the time. The weather goddess was bipolar as it kept changing from a clear night with thousands of stars, to drizzle, to windy, to rain, to bitterly cold and windy. The terrain started off at the paramo/superparamo (fine to walk), sand (super slippery), rocks (fancy doing a bit of rock climbing at 4500m at 3AM? 🙋🏻‍♀️), and finally I reached the border of the glacier, where those bloody ice rocks kept trying to twist my ankles 🤬🤯. Halfway up I was already hungry and had ketones in my breath. I got a frozen bite of chocolate 🍫 kept inside my mouth to slowly melt. I was the slowest 🐢 and had my oxygen saturation checked at one point. Seriously(!) it was freezing cold!

By the time I got to the glacier border, everyone had been waiting for me, all kitted out and ready to watch the most beautiful sunrise I’ve ever seen in my life. Really sorry guys I’d kept you waiting! You’re all angels 😇 I went up the glacier (haven’t been carrying all 5kg or more of winter equipment for just in case?) but quickly realised I wouldn’t make it to the summit in time, I was super tired, and I would rather enjoy the view (watching small eruptions from Nevado del Ruiz), rest, try to ingest as many calories as I could, before starting the descent. Yeap! All those kilometres and altitudes I’ve worked so hard to climb, gotta do it in reverse.

Would I do this again? I don’t know! I don’t want to commit now 😅

#hiking #glaciarhiking #nevadodeltolima

Hiking Colombia’s Nevado del Tolima - Day 2: Fin

Hiking Colombia’s Nevado del Tolima - Day 2: Finca La Playa

A pretty laidback day today. We joined forces with the other group (@salento.hikers) and did a short hike up the hill.

Today’s mission was to acclimatise to altitude (the finca was situated at 3800m and we climbed a little bit further until 4000m-ish) and a crash course in glacier hiking, eek!

Fun fact: Colombia is situated near the equator and the glacier is fragile, I.e. melts under the sun. Therefore all glacier walking is done just around the time of sunrise (just before and just after), otherwise one wrong step and a huge crevice would open up. Also………. What I didn’t know before… was the glacier was more like rock ice that kept trying to twist my ankle 🥶😰🫠☠️

Fun fact 2: some say that you may not have an appetite at high altitude but you must force yourself to eat. Well…. Ehm…. I had the opposite effect! I was always hungry!!! Luckily I was well taken care of by the ladies at Finca La Playa, today’s menu was ribs in BBQ sauce 😋

It was a funny day because after our crash course in mountaineering, we forced ourselves to sleep/nap at 2PM, while there was construction work, farm work, normal life going on outside our room. We had dinner at 6-7PM, slept again, because our “day 3” started at 10PM of day 2!

#solotravel #solofemaletraveler #solofemaletravel #hiking #hikingadventures #colombia #visitcolombia #salento #cocoravalley #nevadodeltolima #parquescolombia #parquenacionaldelosnevados #glaciarhiking

Hiking Colombia’s Nevado del Tolima - Day 1: Coc

Hiking Colombia’s Nevado del Tolima - Day 1: Cocora Valley - Finca La Playa

17.8 km// 6h22m // 2130 m-3915 m // 1424 m ascent // 285 m descent

We started off with great spirits! For probably the first time in my life, I arrived early at our meeting point, maybe because we were about to have breakfast? 😂 Clocked in at Cocora Valley at 6AM, what a wonderful morning to start our expedition!

From the Valley to the Cloud Forest to the Paramo, it was a very scenic hike indeed.

We got to the halfway point Estrella de Agua a bit early and I decided to open my lunch bag and had hamburger 🍔 at 10AM, because why not? The guys opted for snacks/second breakfast 😅 so we later had a second lunch just when we were leaving the forest to the start of the Paramo, and guess what? Alejo (@aleguva3) and Jefe (@jeferramirezb) were having arroz chino/fried rice/nasi goreng for lunch! 😍🤤

The paramo ecosystem is truly unique and marked by the beautiful frailejones (espeletia) which grow at altitudes of 2300-4700 metres. They absorb and store a lot of water in their spongy leaves, and grow at a rate of 3-7 cm per year. And some of the ones we saw were very tall indeed! My mission was to get my hiking buddy Andrés (@vagandoenlibertad) to sing me the Frailejón Ernesto Pérez song!

We slowed down a little bit in the afternoon, making frequent pauses to enjoy the view, visiting other fincas to play with dogs, retrieve climbing gear, and inadvertently lost ONE boot 🤫

We arrived at our final destination feeling very excited and I was looking forward to a hot shower… only to find out that our Amazon Prime delivery hadn’t arrived yet 😬 so we twiddled our thumbs, cuddled more dogs, until some 2 hours later… our bags arrived!

The finca was very comfortable, we got the largest room and picked the best beds 🙌🏻 and later another awesome group of hikers (@salento.hikers) arrived and filled up the rest of the dormitory.

#solotravel #solofemaletraveler #solofemaletravel #hiking #hikingadventures #colombia #visitcolombia #salento #cocoravalley #nevadodeltolima #parquescolombia #parquenacionaldelosnevados #glaciarhiking

A circular route around Valle de Cocora: 12.3 km,

A circular route around Valle de Cocora: 12.3 km, 3h38m, ranging from 2053-2938m altitude.

An awesome recce/training hike before the big one! Especially as one section was the same as our day 1 hike ☺️

There were 3 pay points here: I started in Bosque de Palmas, walking clockwise to finish at the truchera (trout farm) for lunch 🍛. To enter Bosque de Palmas you have to pay 20k pesos (£4), halfway there was the optional detour to Acaime Reserve for hummingbirds (an “obligatory” voluntary donation of 20k pesos which included a hot drink), and before you can leave the route, you have to pay an exit fee of 6k pesos 😅.

At the mirador viewpoint and finca la montaña there were stands selling snacks and drinks 🍹 🍺.

Very beautiful route, leaving the hummingbird reserve, I criss-crossed the river so many times and the bridges were very interesting 😝 but they were all working!

The truchera served fried trout with rice and patacon (fried crispy banana), the trout was good but expensive for Colombian/Salento standard 😨

#solotravel #solofemaletravelers #solofemaletravel #colombia #colombiatravel #salento #valledecocora #cocoravalley #cocoravalleytrek #hiking #hummingbird #waxpalmtree

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