This No-Kill Sanctuary Now Has a Hotel Where You Can Spend the Night With Your Future Pet

Building Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, the largest no-kill shelter in the US

The sprawling 20,000-acre sanctuary facility started in 1984 with a single building. It now houses 175 buildings to provide a haven for up to 1,600 animals at any given time, including dogs, cats, horses, birds, rabbits, pigs and many others. Some of the animals are rescued from traumatic circumstances and come to Best Friends to receive the care and healing they need before finding their forever homes. Visitors can explore the sanctuary through guided tours or volunteer to spend quality time with the animals themselves.

“We want to promote a better world through kindness to animals and bring about a time where there’s no more homeless pets,” says Julie Barger, Director of Experience at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary.

Many of the dogs arrive from a local pound after finishing a 10-day stray hold. Best Friends also seeks animals in danger of being euthanized at facilities across the country. Many of these animals are sick or have experienced trauma and need care urgently, but end up in facilities unable to meet their needs.

Best Friends Roadhouse and Mercantile – the world’s greatest pet-friendly hotel?

Best Friends Roadhouse and Mercantile is a hotel. That said, it’s not your typical motor lodge. Rather, it may be the most pet-friendly lodging property ever to exist – guests, even those not planning to adopt, can bring up to four pets with them for no extra charge. It’s affiliated with Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. The 40 rooms and suites are modern and feature amenities designed specifically for pets. Each room has easy access entrances and cozy nooks for animals to relax. They also feature a dog washing station and a fenced-in dog park with a splash pad. The rooms come in standard sizes with either a king bed or one or two queen beds. Each room offers a separate sleeping and sitting area, a private bathroom with an open vanity, and a desk and wardrobe. There’s a slide-out for extra sleeping space – they do allow up to four pets per room, after all – and solid views of the canyon country outside Kanab. Rates start around $203 per night.

“The main reason we have the hotel is because it’s tied to the sanctuary,” Barger says. “We want to have a really pet-friendly place for all of our visitors that are coming to the sanctuary to volunteer to stay worry-free with their pets.”

The pet-first vibe makes the hotel a great place to spend the night with pets from the sanctuary – even those not (necessarily) planning to adopt. Each room is equipped with pet beds built into the wall, cubbies for smaller animals like cats, and other animal amenities. The property has a gift shop — the mercantile — that sells clothes and goods supporting the sanctuary (you know you want a t-shirt with a cue pig on it to commemorate your stay).

It’s also an excellent place to base an outdoor adventure trip to southern Utah.

“You can combine the Roadhouse and the sanctuary with hiking in the national parks and exploring the canyons for a full-week vacation,” Barger says. “We also have sand caves with free parking right outside the sanctuary, and hiking trails in the sanctuary including a hidden lake that’s about 20 degrees cooler than outside.”

The only condition to bringing pets is that if you are planning to have a sleepover with an animal from the shelter, your other pets must stay home.

“It’s open to the public, you don’t even have to have a pet to stay,” Barger says. “A lot of people stumble upon it because it’s beautiful and centrally located. People say, ‘We miss our pet at home, let’s give a shelter pet the chance to sleep out of their kennel.”

This allows the sanctuary staff to learn more about the pets than most other shelters are able to glean, including how they behave around other animals. Then, staff are better able to find their appropriate permanent homes.

If you visit the Best Friends Sanctuary or Roadhouse and Mercantile, stop by the vegan buffet

For $5, guests and visitors can eat lunch at Best Friends’ vegan buffet from 11:30 AM to 1 PM 365 days per year. At the sanctuary, the staff feed up to 250 people per day, many of whom are staff and volunteers. The cafe looks over Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The kitchen is run by a certified vegan chef.

Those staying at the Roadhouse can take advantage of the hotel’s vegan continental breakfast, which features baked goods, proteins, and cereals served with plant milks, along with specialty coffee drinks.

Book Best Friends Roadhouse and Mercantile