Moving/road Trip

[Pepsi216]

Hello! My husband and I just found out that we’ll be transferring from VA to CA sometime in the next few months, and we plan to drive our 4-legged family cross country rather than flying. We have 2 cats and 2 dogs that'll be sharing space in a large Toyota Highlander. Our current plan is to get a couple of wire crates for the cats to (separately) travel in on the middle set of seats, and the dogs in the back.

My question is this: would it be better to do this trip in as little time as possible (roughly 6 days) to spare the cats, or do you think they'd be okay if we were to take a few detours along the way (stretching the trip to 10 days ish)? Detours would be along the lines of driving through a National Park or checking into a hotel early with the animals and then exploring a town, not leaving everyone in the car unattended. The cats are never thrilled about being in the car, but they’re not as bad as some cats I’ve had (the dogs OTOH think the car is an awesome magic box that deposits them in new places). I’ve read that after the first day or two the cats will just get into a rhythm and it won’t matter too much. On one hand I don’t want to make the trip longer for them than I have to, on the other we’ve never done a cross country road trip and are not sure the next time we’ll have an opportunity to stop at some of these places.

Has anyone done this? What are your thoughts?

 

[Furballsmom]

Hi! I think that 6 days, vs 10 days, isn't going to matter to your furry crewmates.
I'd say take your time, and enjoy!!

How To Move With Your Cat To A New Home In A Safe Way

 

[lalagimp]

I wouldn't do that to my fids. We did three days travel, and Tommy travels the worst. Phoenix to DC, stopped in Oklahoma City OK and Indianapolis. My car had the parrots and the five guinea pigs. BF's MINI had the 4 cats in carriers as well as a litter box. We alternated which cat got free time at stops along the way, like filling up for gas, and had a seat barrier put up between the front seats so the cat wouldn't just stroll up front.

My parrots were really cool about it. They started talking to me while I filled up my gas tank each time. One guinea pig had to travel alone in her cage because she was a ginormous

 

[FeebysOwner]

Hi. Never done such a thing since 'way back when' - and with only one cat, and it was only two days. Big differences. But, if you can be flexible about your trip, you might want to test out how it goes the first couple of days, especially transporting in/out of hotels. If it isn't going well, you could speed up your trip to get it over faster.

 

[lalagimp]

you might want to test out how it goes the first couple of days, especially transporting in/out of hotels.

I blocked that out
Make sure they have a luggage cart

Those carts are so goofy to steer when you have them packed up with cages and carriers after driving 13 hours and are 5 foot 2 inches big.

 

[She's a witch]

Hi! I will be moving along the west coast in the future and had a similar idea. I think my cats will be relatively ok in the car, but what really scares me are the hotel rooms. When I think how many different people live in them every nights and what they leave behind horrifies me My cats are indoor only and they are not exposed on a bacterias/viruses that people carry. I know the rooms are cleaned but my cats explore every little corner of the space they occupy and I am really scared they can get sick. Not mentioning that cats can probably feel all of the smells left behind, smells of people, of previous pets etc and that can be stressful. So I think if we decide to move that way, we'll get RV or something like that to avoid staying in the hotel rooms :-)) but I am a little paranoid when it comes to bacterias etc, unfortunately, I probably exaggerate the problem. Let me know what you decide to do.

 

[Pepsi216]

Thanks everyone for your input and the articles! We'll continue to refine the plan as we go along, but this has been a great start.

I arrived at a 6 day minimum assuming that something will go wrong the first day and we won't leave before noon haha. That, combined with the general rule of thumb of 500 miles a day landed us at 6 days minimum, and if we visit several of the cool things I saw on the map along the way it could be more. I like the idea of seeing how the first couple days go and base the trip off of that, though there's a fine line to walk between finding hotels on the fly and pre-booking to ensure we have a pet friendly place to stay. I'm going to mull over this more as I continue to look at maps.

you might want to test out how it goes the first couple of days, especially transporting in/out of hotels.

The folks at PetSmart looked at me funny when I asked to test out which wire crates I could easily get through the car doors for exactly this reason! We've known this move was a possibility for awhile and have considered several containment options, and we've tossed one after another because they'd be too much of a pain to get in and out of the hotel. We settled on a 24" wire crate for each cat; there's enough space inside for a shelf, a little cat box, extra room to move, and it can still fit through the car door so we don't have to transfer them from a crate to a carrier (which isn't the easiest thing to do on the best of days, much less while on the road!). I'm sure there will still be some swearing by the time the trip is over, but hopefully much less this way!

So I think if we decide to move that way, we'll get RV or something like that to avoid staying in the hotel rooms

We keep going back to the RV idea too, mostly because our dogs are big (greyhounds) and it'd be nice to give them extra room. Unfortunately since we'll only be going one way it's too expensive for us once we figure in the one-way fees, gas, etc, plus the unfamiliarity of driving a bigger-than-normal vehicle cross country. Hotels were surprisingly cheaper, though my concern there is more about cat proofing the room than them smelling other animals (a previous cat of ours would have sprayed the entire room; these two don't seem to care much. I'll be bringing Feliway with me though). I figure the cats will go in their wire crates if we need to leave the room just to make sure they don't bolt through an open door, and otherwise keep an eye on them to make sure they don't wedge themselves in the mattress or something. If you're worried about your kitties exploring too much, have you looked into the large exercise pens (x-pens) they make for dogs? They can be found in both fabric and wire and are used to contain animals, and fold down flat for easy travel. We have a fabric one for the pups that's been useful when we've taken them places in the past.

 

[FeebysOwner]

Most hotels will allow cancellation within 24 hours - you could always reserve rooms for both plans (6 day or 10 day), and cancel as needed.

 

[Pepsi216]

Most hotels will allow cancellation within 24 hours - you could always reserve rooms for both plans (6 day or 10 day), and cancel as needed.

Good point! It seems obvious now, but I didn't think of this

 

[lalagimp]

Best Western had the best pet policy. Different locations it's up to the manager how much they want to charge, but most places otherwise had a 1-2 pet limit per room. I got to pile 12 animals into my room. One place charged a $50 pet fee. I can't find my other invoice currently.

 

[Tobermory]

I’ve done several cross-country moves with three cats. In addition to the advice you’ve already received, I can add the following:

We had two vehicles, but I took the cats. I’m their #1 hoomin. I had a large crate for the two sisters and a smaller but-still-spacious one for the guy. I put the crates together in the back of my SUV so they could see each other and covered the whole with a sheet. I left a little corner open so they could see me. I have one that vomits when she sees the scenery rushing by.

When we stopped for the night, I loaded the crates on one of those hotel luggage carts, still with the crates covered. Too much stress in the hubbub of a hotel lobby.

Be prepared in the hotel room that they’ll want to get under the beds if they can. A lot of hotels now have their beds on platforms, but there may still be openings at the head of the bed where it meets the wall. I took pillows and blankets that I stuffed around to keep kitties from under beds. You haven’t lived until you try to extract a fearful cat from under the middle of a king-sized bed in a strange hotel room. After The Spouse and I had to disassemble a bed to get to the cats, I vowed to be prepared the next time. Their fear quadruples when you have to take the bed apart over the heads.

I packed food so that we didn’t have to stop for meals and leave the cats in the car. We shopped in the evening as needed along the way or did fast food drive throughs. Our moves were in both winter and summer, and particularly in summer, there was no way I would leave them in the car unattended to eat in a restaurant. Even our rest stop visits were quick, and only one of us would go at a time.

After a couple of moves, we decided it was easier on everyone to get two hotel rooms. I took the sisters; The Spouse took the third kitty, Max. Everyone slept better. Max didn’t particularly like the sisters, and there were just too many of us in the room. Also, he was 18 and and an insulin-dependent diabetic for the last move, so we did everything we could to make it as stress-free as possible for him.

All of my cats are indoor-only, and they’re extremely timid. Although they were nervous, I found that they took a lot of comfort from our presence in the rooms. We usually got carry out and brought it back so we didn’t leave them too long. Other than the issue with the beds, I never had trouble getting them back into their crates. In fact, they slept in them. The crates had their familiar scents and it seemed to reassure them. Hopefully, yours will react the same way when you try to put them in their carriers!

I started out with small litter pans in each carrier, but mine never used them until we stopped for the day. They also wouldn’t eat or drink until they were in the hotel room each night.

They usually cried softly for the first hour or so on the first day, but after that, they just hunkered down and endured. Before my first cross-country move, my vet suggested tranquilizers. I tried it the first day and never again. I know it helps some cats, but mine seemed more upset with them than without.

On my last move, we had a blizzard on the first day that closed down the interstate for the rest of the day. We’d been on the road for two hours, and the temperature was 4°F. We had to quickly find a pet friendly hotel at 11 a.m. before all of the rooms were snapped up by stranded motorists. Fun times. Look at your route and think about alternatives if things don’t go as planned!

I think that’s it! I hope it goes smoothly! No blizzards.