You Asked For It: Travels with Prune

Navigating the complications of bringing a dog to Europe

Feb 05, 2025

Prune on her first flight, from Paris to NYC

I adopted my dog Prune in France, in 2015. I’d met her the previous summer when we were doing a story in the Médoc region, and as a family we fell in love with her, along with the area. At the time, she was living with a family who had many dogs, and we convinced them to part with her, promising a life with more personal attention.

We never brought her back to Europe—until this past fall. I knew she was a great traveler, since she’d been on many cross-country flights with me, and as long as she was settled in her cozy little bed within her carrying case, she was content. But Europe was different—we often went to the UK during our travels (our daughter goes to university in Edinburgh), which I’d heard was super strict about allowing pets to enter. And then on many other trips to the EU, we tended to move quickly, staying in places for such short amounts of time, I felt it would be too unsettling for her. Plus she has the best dog-sitter in New York, who begs me to not bring her abroad. But after years of missing her too much, and as our time spent in Europe increased, I was determined to bring her when the right opportunity arose. Since I’d heard from so many of you after this most recent trip that you were interested in how I did it, I thought I’d share my experience. While I certainly don’t have it all figured out (how can you?—every country has different rules!), I’ve learned a lot, which I hope is helpful to you. If you’ve traveled with your pet abroad and have some intel to share, or had a different experience from what I’ve had, or have some questions beyond the below, please share in the comments.

THINKING ABOUT THE RIGHT TRIP - First off, everyone asks if it’s easy to do. It isn’t hard, but traveling abroad with a dog requires some determination and perseverance. If you’re going on a weeklong trip and covering Paris, Rome and Marrakech—I’d recommend leaving your dog at home. It’s also not ideal to have your dog on a trip where you plan to be out exploring all day—museums, restaurants, shops—or navigating crowds. Even if European establishments tend to be more dog-friendly, you can’t bring pets into museums or churches, although this is best confirmed on an individual basis, because, for example, you can bring a small dog to Pompeii. And oddly, Paris parks are not as dog friendly as you’d imagine. If you’re having visions of walking through the Tuileries or Luxembourg Gardens with your dog, there are actually a lot of restrictions on where you can bring them. (Just yesterday I discovered this when I was jaunting across the park with Prune, only to be scolded by security, and I had to pick her up and walk her to the area where dogs are allowed.)

Rome: At dinner, left, and right, at Tebro, a home store we love, but doesn’t want dogs walking through the store

WHAT KIND OF DOG DO YOU HAVE? - Before we go any further, let’s talk about if your dog is big or small, is a pet in-cabin or going in the hold, or is a service animal. A pet in-cabin that isn’t a service animal must weigh less than 8 kg (17.6 lbs), with the bag also being a part of the weight calculation. Any animal bigger than that cannot travel in-cabin. However, if your dog is a service animal, it’s a different story—there isn’t a size limit, but they do have to be at your feet. Depending on the airline and availability, you may be able to purchase a seat for your service animal dog, or rather, the floor space for them. Jet Blue, for one, offers this. As for bigger dogs that aren’t service animals, personally I wouldn’t suggest putting your dog in the hold, unless you’re moving to Europe. (I still believe that our dog Charlie (RIP), who was put in the hold as a puppy, was traumatized by it.) With all of the awful stories I’ve heard about animals in the hold, if you must travel with a large dog, I’d recommend looking into one of the semi-private pet airlines. One other thing to note—if you’re planning on a lie-flat seat for you and your small pet, they aren’t allowed up front unless they are service animals. I discovered this once on a cross-country flight where I’d upgraded, but when I showed up with Prune, they put me back into the main cabin.

MAKING RESERVATIONS - Once you’ve decided that you do want to bring your dog, consider booking a flight that will make it the easiest for your pet (on the taking-care-of-business side of things). Ideally, if you’re taking your dog to Europe, try to book a flight that mimics when they would normally be sleeping. Avoid leaving too early in the evening, because that means their last bathroom break would be at least 90 minutes before takeoff. Once you’ve identified your ideal flight and before you book it, check with the airline to see if there is even availability—they actually have limits on the number of in-cabin pets. That doesn’t apply to service animals, however, which don’t have limits on how many can travel in a class of service.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING - The next very important thing is to contact your vet to make sure your pet’s vaccines are up to date (by EU standards) and that they are microchipped. While in the States, rabies boosters are given every three years (at least in NY—states differ), in the EU, it’s annual. I mistakenly thought we didn’t need to worry about a booster, since it had only been two years since her last one, only to discover once I made the appointment for her travel checkup that she needed one to enter Italy. Moreover, the booster had to be administered 21 days before her travel checkup, so we were really up against the clock. Luckily my vet pointed this out in time, although we had about 1-2 days of wiggle room. Once you have your ducks in a row on the vaccine/microchip front, make the travel checkup appointment, which has to be done within a 10-day window before arrival in whatever foreign country you’re going to.

YES, MORE PAPERWORK - Once the travel checkup happens, the vet (must be a USDA accredited vet—be sure to check!) sends off the health certificate to the USDA to approve, sign and emboss it, and return it expedited to you within a couple of days. If your dog is not a service animal, make sure you go onto the site of whatever airline you’re flying to fill out the DOT (Department of Transportation) paperwork, and the attestation that your dog will not soil the aircraft. It’s often in the Special Services section of the airline, and the costs vary by the airline. If your dog is a service animal, you won’t be charged, but you still must do the DOT and attestation paperwork.

HEADING TO THE AIRPORT - You’ll need both the paperwork in hand that’s been overnighted from the FDA, as well as a copy of your dog’s current rabies certificate. I had uploaded my DOT and attestation paperwork to the airline site beforehand, so I didn’t have to print it out and bring it with me. At the airport, the desk agent called over a manager who went through all of Prune’s paperwork and said she was good to go.

IN FLIGHT - Prune is content in her little bed (it’s the cheapest bed we’ve ever bought and she loves it the most), nestled within the bag. I keep the top unzipped and the flight attendants have never said anything, although technically a pet in-cabin is supposed to be zipped up. A service animal must be at your feet, not in the seat, and leashed.

Left- loves that bed/carrier so much she even sleeps in it at home; Right- on the TGV

Food and water: I have one of these little collapsible bowls, which works for water or food—although she never wants to drink on flights. For food, I bring a pretty full ziplock on the plane—this way, in case we land and can’t find a place to buy dog food for a day or so, we are good. I also bring her favorite snacks, which is pretty much all she wants on the flight.

Prune can hold it a long time—on this recent trip, our original 9:30pm Air France flight was canceled, and the only flight we could get that didn’t have a long connection time to get us to Bordeaux was at 6:50pm. Prune has also been known to snub an airport pet relief area (at least the indoor one at SFO), but it’s good to do your research in advance if you do have a connecting flight, because there may be a pet relief area that isn’t outside. There are two outdoor pet areas at CDG Paris airport—Terminal 2F near gate 17D (which we could have used if our flight hadn’t been canceled), and also one in Terminal 2E, by the M gates. At Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, there’s no such luck—you have to go to the outside area. Prune also won’t use a pad, but if your dog does, you’re lucky. A simple search can pull up whatever airport you’re traveling to/through, and tell you if there is a pet relief area.

HEADING HOME - Make sure you have a reservation for your pet in-cabin, or let the airline know you’re traveling with a service animal. Check with the airline regarding their required paperwork, and then fill out the CDC documentation required.

FREQUENT FLIER - Towards the end of our stay, I happened to mention to a friend who travels back and forth with his dog to Rome that we were planning to bring her back to the EU after going back to New York for a month. He reminded me that the USDA health certificate is actually only good for one “importation.” How did I mess that up? I could easily have brought her to a vet in Rome and gotten her an EU pet passport. UGH. So I had to go through the whole process all over again (a pain, not to mention the cost, which can range between $300-500), but luckily this time we didn’t have to deal with the rabies booster. Another friend recommended that when we return to Europe on our next visit, we bring her to a local vet, along with all of her paperwork, and get her a EU pet passport. (The requirement for getting an EU pet passport is having a residency here, which we do—unfortunately, the US doesn’t offer one; just the one-trip USDA health certificate.) Once we were back in France, I made an appointment at our local vet’s office in the Médoc, and getting her a pet passport couldn’t have been easier. A quick check up, adding her most recent rabies update to the passport, and 20 minutes and 7 euros later, with some new words learned (rabies is rage, en francais!), we had an EU pet passport in hand.

This doesn’t mean we can go willy-nilly wherever we want with Prune. In Europe, some of the carriers that fly nonstop don’t allow pets in-cabin–like EasyJet or RyanAir. We had one internal flight on our last trip—and luckily, the route between Rome and Bordeaux is handled by Volotea, which accepts pets in-cabin, as well as assistance dogs, which is what they call service animals in Europe. The only hiccup was they wouldn’t let me book my seat in advance because of the dog, and by the time we checked in, there was no seat next to my husband, Matt.

A quick note on trains—while I haven’t researched the rules around traveling between countries, within France, we had no trouble bringing her on the TGV from Bordeaux to Paris, and I wasn’t even aware until writing this that technically we should have paid 7 euros to have her on board. Nobody said anything.

I’m not going to go into all the rules of other airlines servicing other places in the world (you can find that out with an easy search), but I do think it’s charming that dogs can’t ride in the cabin on Emirates, but falcons can. Alas, she’ll never get to Oz—our friends who are moving back to Australia started their dog importation process last March and say that it will be a full year, and likely upwards of $10K, to move their dog back, along with some quarantines as well. And even if the UK has greatly relaxed their pet entrance requirements, their harsh quarantine reputation is imprinted in my brain.

IS IT WORTH IT? - I can’t tell you what a game changer it was for me to have Prune with us in Rome and France. Normally, I get in a work-all-day mode and only leave the house for a morning run and at the end of day to meet up with friends. Having Prune in Europe meant I took so much more time for her/myself—and discovered many little streets and alleyways that I wouldn’t have without her there. And besides, dogs are such immediate conversation starters.

PS - If you’re interested in an airline-by-airline breakdown of the rules, allowances, and charges, for traveling with your pet domestically, this NY Times article is very thorough. This site explains how to make your dog a service animal. I also found this site very helpful for navigating Paris with a dog. And for private pet airline options, K9 Jets flies to/from London, New York, and Lisbon, while Bark Air has biweekly flights between New York & London and LA & London.