Dog Friendly Santa Fe, New Mexico
While Santa Fe, New Mexico may not have quite as well recognized attractions compared to nearby states, we were pleasantly surprised with what we found for dog friendly options. We found a great hike, great restaurants and cute areas to explore!
Dog Friendly Food & Drink Spots
Our favorite spot was Maria’s New Mexican Kitchen. They have a dog friendly patio that you can only access by walking inside so don’t be surprised when you don’t see the patio from the outside. The inside is HUGE and a bit of a maze to get to the patio but the hostess will lead the way. We had a decent wait (about 35 min.) to get a table on a Wednesday evening around 7pm. Everything we ordered was fantastic.
Desert Dogs Brewery & Cidery in the main city area has very small patio (upstairs balcony) but they let pups hang out inside too. They have a small taco menu if you are looking for food.
Rowleys Farmhouse Ales with its dog friendly patio has a great beer & food menu. The only thing to note is that it can be hard to find a table out of the sun in the later afternoon/early evening with how the umbrellas are situated.
Hiking with Dogs in Santa Fe
Sun Mountain was the only hike we did which is a 1.5 mile out and back with an 800 foot assent. The hike was tough with corgis but the views are worth it!
Pups are allowed on the trail but make sure you are in very good hiking shape and have lots of water as there isn’t much shade. We saw 2 dogs doing the full trail and were stopping for lots of breaks and water as needed. We used our K9 Sport Sacks but the corgis got out at the summit to stretch their legs before the hike back down.
Our agenda also planned for a stop at Pecos National Historic Park which allows dogs on all but 1 trail. Unfortunately, it ended up being a hot day and they closed at 4:00pm (in late May) so we didn’t get to stop by.
The main attraction near Santa Fe is the Bandelier National Monument which is NOT dog friendly. Generally, with places like this we can normally find a similar dog friendly park or trail near the location. That was not the case through our research so we skipped it.
Other Areas To Explore
We spent time walking around the Plaza area & down Canyon Road. Canyon Road has lots of sculpture art and cute storefronts. There were gardens you could walk through but since we went late in the day all stores were closed to know if dogs can go inside.
The Plaza area often has live music and there are few outdoor patio areas around where we saw dogs. It wasn’t very busy during the week but this seems like a cool spot when there are more activities going on.
In Conclusion
Overall, Santa Fe has cute areas to stroll around and a majority of patios appeared to be dog friendly. The only issue we had is that many businesses and restaurants had inaccurate hours listed. Our guess was this was due to places reopening from COVID. I’d recommend backup choices incase your destination is closed.
Check out our dog-friendly travel posts for more trip ideas and tips.