Fresh ocean breezes blow on your face, sunshine and blue skies overhead, vistas of gently rolling hills studded with Oak trees delight your eyes, streams trickle across your path, wildflowers waft a soothing scent, eagles soar overhead, deer scamper away, wild turkeys gobble nearby, cattle mill about . . . your whole family and all your friends enjoying a trial ride and the outdoors with you. . .
. . . Well, maybe not the latter because you don’t have enough horses and tack to get all your friends and family up on a horse. Or perhaps their riding experience (or lack thereof) just might make it a challenge for you to manage. Maybe your horse(s) is/are just not suitable for trail riding. So is this possible?
Yes, with a guided trail ride! You can plan a trail ride with your friends and family and let someone else provide the horses and manage the experience. Plan a birthday ride, celebrate an Anniversary, enjoy a family reunion, or add the adventure to a Girls Getaway weekend. A guided trail ride allows you to sit up and enjoy the ride, while sharing the beauty of SLO County trails with everyone!
Where can you do this in San Luis Obispo County? There are several places scattered from the far north in Paso to the far south in Oceano. An added bonus is that a few places offer accommodations giving you a “Stay and Ride” experience.
Guided Trail Rides North to South SLO County:
- Work Ranch – Paso Robles. Offer a variety of rides on their working cattle ranch along with accommodations.
- Central Coast Trail Rides – Various locations – Get a customized guided trail ride at a location of your choosing.
- Shangri-la Ranch – Santa Margarita. Offers guided trail rides. Camping can be found nearby.
- Madonna Inn – San Luis Obispo. Ride up the Madonna Mountain and enjoy the sweeping vista of the city of San Luis Obispo and down the Los Osos Valley.
- Covells Clydesdales – Cambria. Explore the beautiful Covell ranch along the coastline of Cambria on the back of a Clydesdale.
- Pacific Dunes Ranch and RV Resort – Oceano. Bring your own horse or borrow from the Ranch. Stay in your own RV or camp beside your horse.
- Sea Pines Golf Resort – Los Osos. Does not have a string of horses for your friends but they offer corrals for your own horses and accommodations in their luxury hotel.
Perhaps we’ve inspired you to plan your next guided trail ride adventure with your family and friends. Check out the individual stories on each of these locations which appear in SLO Horse News: Work Ranch, Madonna Inn, Shangri-la Ranch, Central Coast Trail Rides, Sea Pines Golf Resort, Covell’s Clydesdales.
There are so many ways to horse around in stunning SLO County. Come horse around with us. To keep this info at your fingertips we have developed a FREE Hot Sheet that will direct you to stories which tell you where you can trail ride, stay with your horse, show and taste. We’ll continue to add horsing around stories to our website. You can stay up-to-date by becoming a SLO Horse News herd member. Just click this link: Get your Horsing Around in SLO County Hot Sheet here >.
