Yurtshire: Georgie's First Doggy Holiday

This weekend we spent a night at Yurtshire, Eavestone Lakes. Read on to find out more about their dog friendly glamping yurts...

This weekend was our first wedding anniversary! To celebrate, we had booked a night away in Yorkshire, at the Yurtshire glamping yurts at Eavestone Lake. Of course, we couldn't leave little Georgie behind, so we booked one of their doggy friendly yurts, and set off on our adventure...

Yurtshire market themselves as 'luxury accommodation in the Yorkshire countryside', and have two sites - Eavestone Lake, and Fountains. The Eavestone lake site has luxury tree yurts and a wellness spa, and the Fountains site has luxury meadow yurts. Dogs are allowed in 6 of their yurts across both sites, at a supplementary cost of £10 per night.

Our First Impressions

Check in for our yurt was from 3.30pm, and we arrived at the site around 4pm. It seemed that many of the other guests had the same idea, and we arrived at the same time as four other groups. We all parked in the car park at the entrance, and guests were taken to their yurts in order of arrival. There was only one member of staff doing the check in and transporting your luggage on the buggy down to the yurt, so check in did take some time.

Once it was our turn, we loaded our bags on to the buggy and we were given directions. We had booked 'Willow', one of their dog friendly yurts. We then walked down a fairly steep hill, and met the member of staff at our yurt, where she explained that there was a guest information book inside, use of everything inside the yurt was for free, and if we wished to purchase any extra logs etc. there were extras in the stowage outside. We had also paid £10 extra to have our wood fired hot tub preheated for our arrival.

Overall, our first impressions of the Willow yurt were very good!

Our Stay

Each yurt has an outdoor seating area, outdoor dining table and chairs, and a BBQ. They also advertised on their social media that each yurt now has a cold plunge barrel, but there wasn't one at ours, which we were quite disappointed with as we would have liked to try it.

The yurts are self catering, but for an extra cost you could pre order either a meal for two, or a BBQ hamper for your arrival, or even a breakfast hamper for the morning. We chose to bring our own food and use the BBQ, along with our own charcoal (there was a charge of £8 to buy charcoal at the site). Each yurt also had a mini grill oven and a kettle. There was no running water inside, so if you need water for washing up etc. you have to bring water from the outdoor bathroom in a jug.

We spent the evening eating, drinking, playing scrabble and enjoying the hot tub. Georgie enjoyed running around the deck, although we had to make a barricade on either side with folded down chairs, as there were no gates. We also went for a walk along Eavestone Lake.

Yurtshire also have an option to book a spa treatment at the Eavestone Lake site, but when we checked, it was not possible to book for a Sunday (which is the day that we stayed) and check out the next morning is 10am, so we did not have time. The site also has a wood fired sauna, but you had to prepare and heat this yourself with logs, which would mean either buying extra logs, or using the free ones from your yurt. This would mean you have less logs for your indoor and outdoor fire.

We really enjoyed our stay at Yurtshire, the yurt had been decorated beautifully, with a skylight above the bed, a lovely deck outside with hot tub, BBQ and fire, and also an outdoor bathroom with a glass roof.

The surroundings are absolutely beautiful and so peaceful, luckily we had good dry weather and was able to make use of our outdoor area all evening. There is very little phone signal in the area, and no wi-fi, which we think is a bonus - it really helped us to have a relaxing evening with no distractions, where you can just sit and listen to the peaceful sounds of nature. The yurts are also very private, with plenty of space between them all so there is no one overlooking you.

We paid the extra money for the hot tub to be pre-heated, as with only staying for one night we felt it was not enough time to be messing around trying to heat it ourselves. If you want, you can also pay extra to hire a pizza oven.

We also think that a small breakfast hamper could have been included in the price, for example a breakfast pastry or cereal. Although, the yurt did have a coffee machine and kettle, and teabags, sugar and coffee pods were provided.

How Dog Friendly Was Our Stay?

Overall we would say that Yurtshire is a great place to stay for a night or weekend away with your furry friends! The location is great if you would like to explore further, with many good walks close by. If, like us, you just want to relax at the site, then the walk by the lake is also lovely and peaceful, which is great for a reactive dog like Georgie. We only saw one other dog staying the same night as us, which luckily Georgie didn't spot.

We do think that the yurts which are advertised as dog friendly should have an enclosed outdoor deck area - pets prone to running off can easily escape on to the rest of the site, which may be an issue with other guests. There also were not any of the little touches that you may find in other dog friendly accommodation - no water bowls, treats etc. This is fine as we had brought all of Georgie's home comforts (his bag was bigger than ours!), but these things are often appreciated by dog owners. Dogs are also not allowed on the furniture, so do remember to pack your dogs bed or crate if visiting.

I would say the site is dog friendly, but not proactively promoted as such, as they are advertising more along the lines of luxury accommodation.

The Verdict

Would we return? Absolutely, yes! Although the cost can quickly add up with all the extras, we would happily return again. We would probably prefer to stay the whole weekend next time, as it's a lot of packing and unpacking for one night when you take all of your own food and supplies. Saying this, we really enjoyed our one night stay, it was calm, relaxing and peaceful.

Have you visited any of the Yurtshire sites? If not, where are your favourite dog friendly holiday stays? Let us know in the comments or over on Instagram - @hiya_georgie23