Lifestyle

How to Travel in Your Car with your Dog

Published

5 years ago

July 3, 2020

Transporting a dog from one place to another can be a stressful experience, especially if you’re travelling over a very long distance. It’s undeniable that certain cars are better suited to canine transportation than others. And if your dog is considered a fully-fledged member of the family, as so many are, then their needs should be accounted for before any purchasing decision.

For those considering a new car, ZenAuto have penned an article which identifies a few important considerations. Most of what they’ve identified can be distilled into a few key categories.

Capacity

The first consideration should be space in the rear of the car. You’ll want enough of it to accommodate a dog in a fixed cage, along with all of the luggage you might want to transport. Moreover, the boot should be low enough to the ground that the dog can easily jump in and out without banging their legs on the lip.

Suspension

Cars which rattle around the moment they encounter the slightest bump are going to be stressful for your passengers – and especially for your dog, who might not be accustomed to sudden unexplained vibrations. For this reason, opting for something with decent suspension is often worthwhile.

How can I adapt an existing car?

Even if you’re travelling in a vehicle you already own, there are a few choice additions you can make to make travel safer for your dog. According to rule 57 of the highway code, dogs travelling in cars should be ‘suitably restrained’, in order that they not be flying loose around the passenger compartment in the event of a collision or sudden stop, and so that they can’t distract the person driving. This might mean installing a fixed cage in the rear of the vehicle.

You might suppose that your dog is well-trained enough that they won’t react poorly to such an event, but since there’s no way of knowing this in advance, it’s best to err on the side of caution.

One thing that your dog is likely to introduce into the boot of your car is mud, and lots of it. Go for a long walk through the countryside, and you may well end up with a dog that’s covered in mud – especially if yours is the sort of dog who loves nothing better than to splash through every mud-puddle that life throws at it. If you’d like to avoid muddy pawprints covering the inside of your nice new boot, then invest in a boot protector. These devices are often custom-made to fit the contours of a specific vehicle. When you get how, you can simply take them out of the car, wash them, and then replace them.

Lifestyle

Wanda Knight on Blending Culture, Style, and Leadership Through Travel

Published

4 hours ago

December 24, 2025

Michelle Langton

The best lessons in leadership do not always come from a classroom or a boardroom. Sometimes they come from a crowded market in a foreign city, a train ride through unfamiliar landscapes, or a quiet conversation with someone whose life looks very different from your own.

Wanda Knight has built her career in enterprise sales and leadership for more than three decades, working with some of the world’s largest companies and guiding teams through constant change. But ask her what shaped her most, and she will point not just to her professional milestones but to the way travel has expanded her perspective. With 38 countries visited and more on the horizon, her worldview has been formed as much by her passport as by her resume.

Travel entered her life early. Her parents valued exploration, and before she began college, she had already lived in Italy. That experience, stepping into a different culture at such a young age, left a lasting impression. It showed her that the world was much bigger than the environment she grew up in and that adaptability was not just useful, it was necessary. Those early lessons of curiosity and openness would later shape the way she led in business.

Sales, at its core, is about connection. Numbers matter, but relationships determine long-term success. Wanda’s time abroad taught her how to connect across differences. Navigating unfamiliar places and adjusting to environments that operated on different expectations gave her the patience and awareness to understand people first, and business second. That approach carried over into leadership, where she built a reputation for giving her teams the space to take ownership while standing firmly behind them when it mattered most.

The link between travel and leadership becomes even clearer in moments of challenge. Unfamiliar settings require flexibility, quick decision-making, and the ability to stay calm under pressure. The same skills are critical in enterprise sales, where strategies shift quickly and no deal is ever guaranteed. Knight learned that success comes from being willing to step into the unknown, whether that means exploring a new country or taking on a leadership role she had not originally planned to pursue.

Her travels have also influenced her eye for style and her creative pursuits. Fashion, for Wanda, is more than clothing; it is a reflection of culture, history, and identity. Experiencing how different communities express themselves, from the craftsmanship of Italian textiles to the energy of street style in cities around the world, has deepened her appreciation for aesthetics as a form of storytelling. Rather than keeping her professional and personal worlds separate, she has learned to blend them, carrying the discipline and strategy of her sales career into her creative interests and vice versa.

None of this has been about starting over. It has been about adding layers, expanding her perspective without erasing the experiences that came before. Wanda’s story is not one of leaving a career behind but of integrating all the parts of who she is: a leader shaped by high-stakes business, a traveler shaped by global culture, and a creative voice learning to merge both worlds.

What stands out most is how she continues to approach both leadership and life with the same curiosity that first took her beyond her comfort zone. Each new country is an opportunity to learn, just as each new role has been a chance to grow. For those looking at her path, the lesson is clear: leadership is not about staying in one lane; it is about collecting experiences that teach you how to see, how to adapt, and how to connect.

As she looks to the future, Wanda Knight’s compass still points outward. She will keep adding stamps to her passport, finding inspiration in new cultures, and carrying those insights back into the rooms where strategy is shaped and decisions are made. Her legacy will not be measured only by deals closed or positions held but by the perspective she brought, and the way she showed that leading with a global view can change the story for everyone around you.