Online Trail Riding Planning Guide

Guests at Ricochet Ridge Ranch near Mendocino, California, savor breathtaking Pacific Coast scenery, as well as luxurious inns, local nightlife, and fine dining.

Dreaming of a riding vacation that delivers all that it promises? You can go online to find and book your dream trip from the comfort of your home. Here, we'll give you a five-step planning guide, with help from The Trail Rider contributors Ben Theyre, and Kent and Charlene Krone, as well as riding tour owners/operators Bayard Fox (Equitours) and Lari Shea (Ricochet Ridge Ranch).

Along the way, we'll show you how to customize your search and avoid pitfalls. We've also included key questions to ask before you put your money down, and what you can do to reduce trip-related risks.

Step 1: Define Your Goals
Before you start your online search, define what you and your fellow travelers - be they human or equine - need and want for a perfect vacation. Answer the following questions to help keep your search on track.

This group of enthusiastic Canadian trail riders hauled their horses to Palmquist Farm, in Northern Wisconsin, to experience the region's beauty and the farm's relaxing ambience.

• Are you hauling your own horse, or do you need the facility to provide a mount?
• Are you traveling alone, or with family and/or friends?
• Are you traveling out of state?
• What's the riding-fitness level of everyone in your group? How frequently does each one ride - several times a week, once a month, once in a blue moon?
• What's each person's horsemanship level? What can each do comfortably and safely? Do your group members ride mostly in a controlled environment (such as an arena), or on the trail (where horses may spook or balk)?
• What activities other than riding are people looking for? These might include ranch activities, hunting/fishing, rafting, hiking, archery, museum visits, live entertainment, fine dining, and/or socializing with other guests.

Step 2: Start Your Search
Once you've defined what your vacation needs and goals are, open up your favorite Internet search engine (such as Google or Yahoo!), and begin. We've created three rider profiles to help guide you through the search process.

• Rider Profile #1: You're an experienced weekly trail rider, but your spouse and two adolescent children ride infrequently. You seek a family-friendly California resort for a week of trail riding (suitable for different levels of horsemanship), as well as other sports and activities.

When you start your search, you might use the following keywords (search terms). By using the "advanced search" option, you optimize your search (this example shows Google's advanced search prompts):

Find web pages that have…
All these words: horse family vacation
This exact wording or phrase: California
One or more of these words: ride rides
riding trails activities
But don't show pages that have: _________

Note that the last search term has been left blank. After the initial search, your keywords might be refined so that future search results don't show pages that have skiing, Disneyland, Legoland, holiday, holidays or other words that resulted in pages that weren't suitable. (Note: "Holiday" is the British word for vacation; excluding that term will reduce search results that refer to trips outside of the United States.)