Exploring the American Wilderness and Other Adventures

Best Friends Animal Society, Kanab, Utah

Best Friends Roadhouse and Mercantile collaborates with Dreamland Safari Tours and provides lodging for the Dreamland Women’s Adventure Award weekend. It is located in the heart of the tiny town of Kanab, Utah, and if you travel with your pets, it is ideal in every way. The rooms are contemporary and beautiful, the bed has a large dog bed trundle built in it, and the rooms are outfitted for your pet with unique towels and food and water bowls. The property is designed entirely for your and your pet’s happiness – to include multiple outdoor recreation areas and an indoor pet bathing area. 

The Roadhouse is a property of Best Friends Sanctuary – the largest animal sanctuary in the US and leader of the no-kill animal shelter movement. 

It is hard to grasp how large this sanctuary is – Best Friends now owns 8,000 acres and then leases an additional 17,000 acres from the Bureau of Land Management. On any given day, 1,600 animals receive care. 

This location, called “Little Hollywood,” was the setting for many old production scenes, including large names like Gunsmoke and Lassie. Check out IMDB for more. 

The VIP tour was a wonderful drive through the Angel Canyon with an energetic and knowledgeable staff member who volunteered her time to provide that experience. That energy emanated from all the staff we met that day – the passion for saving all animals and providing them with enriched, fulfilled lives. Our guide stopped to let us have time with the pigs, cats, and dogs – it was a phenomenal time for this animal lover. 

Best Friends is committed to animals from birth to death – they have a vast pet cemetery called Angel’s Rest and Angel’s Overlook that rings with joy from thousands of wind chimes hung from trees and man-made structures. 

Part of the Dreamland Women’s Adventure Award award was a VIP tour and a lunch with one of the sanctuary’s founders, Gregory Castle, and Paul from Dreamland Safari Tours. Gregory was an excellent host and showed interest in each of us award winners while also telling us about the critical work happening regarding advocating for widespread education and advocacy for all animals. 

I did a lot of research on Best Friends Animal Society before and after seeing the sanctuary and meeting Gregory. I encourage you to do the same. Check out Wikipedia Best Friends Animal Society. He is open about the struggles that he and his co-founders experienced in standing up for a movement that has been unpopular in the US. Even after deep diving into Google, overall, the land and animals seem to be being protected by very real, flawed people who had many missteps on their pathway to not only saving animals but themselves and all of us – if these leaders can be imperfect and still do great things, then that means we all can.