I travelled in a 6m long campervan with my cat during the summer of 2017 and 2018. Diva, my cat, quickly realised that the new house on wheels was home, probably because I've had to move so much in my life and plenty of that included moving with her.
At first I kept her in her cat basket, and for the first few miles she meowled like she was going to the vet, which I'm sure is what she was thinking. After a few more miles, she only meowled when we went into tunnels and to this day 2 years after she has gone on to cat heaven, we still meowl in her memory in every tunnel. I never heard that tunnel meowl before we started travelling, and it was pretty insistent!
After a day of travelling, I didn't put her in the basket as we moved, and I opened the door to let her out when I pulled up as long as a road was nowhere nearby. She quickly learned to jump back into the van the moment I started the engine, and she lay down in a small gap behind the passenger seat, that was her place, and a very safe place for her to be in case of an accident - but then Diva was always a clever cat.
I realised that Diva was much easier to deal with on the road than in any of the flats we lived in. On the road she was more dependent on me, she never went too far and only thrice in 2 years did she disappear for longer than I was comfortable with.
The first time I found her 30 metres from the van in a wood pile, mewing, and I think she had hurt herself. This was after she had jumped out of the van window whilst I was backing up to the water tap, and I learned that I needed to keep all windows shut.
The second time I was on a beach in Coatia, and I'd taken her maybe 70 metres from the van on her lead, but she didn't like the lead so I let her off, and then lost sight of her and I eventually found her back at the van after a search of the bushes at the back of the beach.
The third time we were on Corsica and due to leave the campsite to get an early morning ferry. She was just nowhere to be found despite calling and calling her and walking around the campsite. Eventually she came back, making us 2 hours late for departure but not missing the ferry.
So all-in-all, Diva seemed to enjoy her travel and she got to live a varied life and saw much of Europe. She wasn't shut in an apartment alone much, because I always lived in ground floor flats with bars on the windows in Australia so she could jump in and out of our windows as she liked. Once I was forced to take an apartment with no outdoor access for a year, and I noticed she seemed to get depressed (I also hated the apartment) and I then moved to a garden apartment as soon as my lease was up.
I kept a litter tray in the van for her, which in a small space you want to empty asap after every toilet. The biggest worry was not leaving her in the van if it was warm when I had to do something like go to a supermarket. The van is not like a car, it's not all glass and it takes a lot longer to heat up in direct sunlight. Of course you always park in shade whenever possible, and I always leave the top skylight window open so that hot air escapes upward. Still, on hot days I was forced to take her with me on a lead inside a cloth bag so that she could hide if a dog was walking past. This worked well for her, the only thing was that she's a really big cat and very heavy!
Travel with an animal is not as hard as you might think, my biggest worry was the heat in the van if I had to leave for a few hours. Some people solve that by building a window cage so the cat can be outside in the breeze while your van is locked up, but it's still not that secure I think. Often these people are campsite people.
The other big thing is tracking your cat! I tried Trackr, but save your money, it's useless only beeps if you're pretty much within sight of your cat anyway - and that's if you can get a bluetooth connection. The app also has a terrible and confusing design.
To receive my tips on travelling with a dog or cat, email me on rachaelpage@me.com with the subject 'Travel with a pet'
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