About 5 years ago we moved to Florida from New York. We planned to drive while the moving company drove down to arrive at the same time. Much better than taking a plane with the pets and and waiting longer than we would for all of our furniture to arrive. Along with my husband and kids we also had our 4 cats in the vehicle. Yes you read that right. 4 cats!
We rented a large SUV very similar to the New 2019 Chevrolet Traverse FWD 2LT at Victory Layne Chevrolet. This vehicle easily fit the 5 of us and our 4 cats and the two large carries they were in along with luggage, snacks, food for for the cats and litter, and small valuables. You’d think it would be hard traveling with pets but if you plan ahead, it can be done safe and fairly easy.
We have traveled many times in the past on long trips, but without the pets. This time we just did what we would normally would do. Which was stopping about every 3 hours for the kids bathroom breaks, and and grabbing a bite to eat. Things were just a little different. When we stopped we stopped for the cats to use the bathroom as well. We didn’t put a litter box in the cages with the cats because that would get messy while we were driving. So what I thought to do was buy those disposable turkey baking pans you can get at the dollar store. We put down some newspaper in the turkey pan and filled it a little with cat litter. Then we let 1 cat out at a time to use the bathroom. After they were all done we threw out the pan before we left for the road again. Then in another 3 or so hours we would do the same thing. They didn’t go much because they were scared of what was going on but that’s normal. The cages we used were two medium sized cages that you would use if you had a rabbit. They were able to fit two adult cats in 1 cage perfectly with extra room. But if you have a very large cat just put them in their own cage.
You must be thinking what about hotels, well of course we looked at those ahead of time. While we looked at directions we looked up the hotels in the areas that we would be driving past and if they accepted pets. Some accepted pets and some didn’t, some asked for a deposit for the pets so if they destroyed anything in the room the deposit would pay for it.
There were some issues we ran into. One of our male cats wasn’t fixed at the time and had sprayed and peed on one of the small blankets we put down in their cage. So we had to change that one out. Also one of our new female cats at the time got car sick and would drool excessively and threw up. We just cleaned it up. There wasn’t much we could do about her getting car sick, besides comfort her and give her water and clean up where she was sick.
If you travel with dogs, and they are already car experienced you won’t have to get cages. Stop occasionally to let them stretch and walk around and use the bathroom as well. and if they get car sick just be prepared to stop and clean it up. Traveling with pets isn’t hard you just need to know what to do and expect the unexpected.
Speak Your Mind