so our cat graham has been to 10 countries and 46 u.s states but before he was just an indoor cat
now he's the cutest best little adventure buddy we could ever hope for graham was an indoor cat
for three years or so before moving into the van but he always loves staring out the window we went
on road trips to the other side of the city but nothing too far and he gradually got better at
being in the car so before we completely moved into the van we went on a two-week trial run
with graham to see if he would like it and after the initial shock of being inside the moving van
he really started to enjoy it especially when he got to go outside and explore
little by little we let him outside with a harness at first but he didn't really like it and he would
always try and back out of it so we just ditched the harness and started following him around and
he didn't go too far so eventually we just started letting him out on his own
he would never leave for more than 20 minutes at a time so we were never too worried about him
but we definitely don't let him out everywhere if there are dogs wild animals or vehicles around we
go with him we know that he's safe we really didn't know how graham would react to van life
and every day that he's in this van with us we're so impressed with how well he's doing
starting from a little barn kitten and now all the way down to colombia it's pretty insane
okay so the first thing to know whenever you want to have a van life cat is they need a
place to go to the bathroom the litter box graham sometimes will go outside but not all the time
he really prefers to go in his litter box so our litter box is situated right next to our sliding
door it has a lid that we can flip up so that we can easily take out the litter it's in a box
so graham can go in and out as he pleases and no one can really no one's gonna see him do anything
or it holds the smell a little bit better too because there's an air freshener inside and in the
self-contained box we can we also hold the scooper and it's mounted on the side so it's really like a
perfect situation for us to get that stuff out of there quickly so with any animal living inside the
van fans are super important if it's not crazy hot you could probably get away with just an exhaust
but since going to central america an intake is absolutely crucial so we have one fan that does
intake and the other one that does exhaust so it's a whole circle that goes around
basically the whole van and then we also have two usb fans that are rechargeable that we can
put right next to him before we leave and we also have a dc box fan that we leave around the van
we also have some metal inserts for the front windows we can put them in so that bugs can stay
out the end the exhaust can pull in the outside air from the front windows the metal inserts also
help to show people that the cat is not in danger in any way because there's airflow inside of the
van not that we've ever really had any issues with that but some good samaritans might not realize
that we have two fans in the back and graham just likes sitting in the front another thing that we
have are two ice packs that we leave in the fridge we never leave graham in the van if we cannot find
shade and it's too hot if we can't find shade one of us will just sit in the van and be with
him and have the doors open so that there's air flow sometimes we also bring him with us if we
can't find shade the fans are really important because cats unlike dogs don't really want to go
everywhere with you they don't really want to be walking down the city street it's kind of scary so
it's really important to have a safe space for him inside of his home so that he can relax in
here when he doesn't really want to go outside so graham loves his hiding spots his favorite
ones are in the loft above the drivers and passenger seats underneath the driver's seat and
the passenger seat and he also has this little apartment that we made for him he likes to hide
under the blankets a lot he really loves to have hiding spots and cats need hiding spots
they love to be alone sometimes we keep those spots clear for graham so that he can jump in
and out whenever he wants so graham's apartment we made graham's apartment in baja california
right after we got sombrita we were on a beach and we were thinking we were trying to plot out
how we were going to make this hole in the side of our wardrobe so that he can go in and out
and have his food comfortably without the dog trying to eat it one of the people that were also
staying on the beach was actually redoing his van at the same time so he had a bunch of tools in his
van he cut the hole for us with his saw and right after that graham was able to jump in and out of
his little apartment so inside of his apartment we have his food we have a scratch pad for him that
is also removable so that we can bring it in and out of hotel rooms airbnbs uh if somebody wants us
to stay inside or something like that we can bring it in so that he doesn't destroy their stuff and
he also has a couple toys in there graham actually came up with the idea of the apartment because
every time we would open up the wardrobe he would climb in and start clawing out our clothes so that
he could find another hiding spot in between our clothes he's already loving the wardrobe let's
just cut him a hole so he can constantly have his own spot so we cleared off a whole shelf in
the wardrobe our wardrobe is pretty small so we have to get rid of quite a few clothes for him
to be able to actually do this it's so worth it he loves his little apartment and sombrita hasn't
been able to eat his food graham has two carriers one is for hiking and the other is for long-term
airport or like bed business so the hiking is actually a backpack and he's gotten really used
to the backpack over the years he now can just tell us when he's ready to be
picked up and he'll just sit in the backpack with his little head poking out and whenever he wants
to jump out he'll just like start to prop his feet up and yeah we let him out and he just follows us
so the hiking backpack has really helped us get farther out there with graham the airport carrier
is more comfortable for him he can stand up and turn around it's a little bit bigger but
it's not very comfortable for us to carry so it's not really realistic to bring on a big hike but
it's good for him to have a pretty big carrier for longer journeys oh my gosh so graham's food he has
an allergy with to wheat and we figured this out with a lot of trial and error of different
brands so anytime he had any food that had wheat in it he would scratch his forehead and
create little scratches on his head eventually we figured out he cannot have wheat and that's kind
of hard traveling down here where it's not higher quality food all the time we have gone to the more
expensive pet food stores and we have been able to find him really good food without wheat right
now he has taste of the wild and he's been eating that for probably eight months and
it's good because he's small doesn't really eat that much food we always pick up at least
two bags because we don't know when the next time we're gonna see an expensive food store so he
always has an extra bag of food we also store his food in an airtight plastic bin compared
to the heat having graham in the cold is not a big deal i think he actually likes the cold
i love the cold so i probably am projecting that he is a little heater for me when we sleep he
likes to sleep with me underneath the covers and when we're not here during the day and it's cold
you could usually just find him under the covers i mean he sleeps all day
either way so for him to sleep under the covers is not too much of a change of his schedule we
do have a hot water bottle for the crazy cold times where if we we're not gonna we don't leave
him for that long either way but for the crazy cold times we do fill up the hot water bottle
and put it underneath the covers and sometimes he'll take a nap next to it sometimes we'll find
him somewhere else that we're like this isn't warm but either way he seems comfortable in the
cold actually it's easier to hike with graham as well because of the snow
and if there's a one lane truck he can't really go anywhere else and there's no
grass to eat so he's just kind of walking in a line until you can't walk anymore
so when it is hot it is nice to leave open the doors if it is a campsite that is free of mean
dogs wild animals and vehicles we'll just leave the doors wide open and grandma will come and go
as he pleases he really won't go too far and he'll only be out there for about 20 minutes and he'll
come back and sip some water munch on some food and probably just lay down or see what we're doing
sometimes he wants to wander around with us and he'll let us know in the us this was super easy
because there are tons of campsites that are free and there's no one around and there's hardly any
animals or sometimes there's animals but there's no mean dogs for sure and there's definitely not
any vehicles but as you get farther south the population density gets higher and it kind of
starts to get a little bit harder to find these spots so lately we've been just taking him on
hikes but we still don't use the leash and he still gets to have his outside time just with
a chaperone so to get graham to hike at first we did take him with a leash
he could escape if he got scared and he would back out of it and run away but usually back to the van
one day we took him out into a fenced area and we thought we'll just let him wander around
without the leash and he actually did really well after that whenever we were at a safe campsite we
started to let him out and follow him around and watch him and after he would explore for a little
while he would start to become comfortable with coming whenever we whenever we would call and run
back one day we went on a hike just danny and i we came back to the van and we let graham out and
he just went right over to the trail we had just finished so we got to do that hike twice that day
he didn't go very far because he stopped actually as soon as we hit a little bridge with a little
stream underneath of it um and turned around and went back to the van but he stayed with us the
whole time and after that we thought wow we're gonna be able to take this cat on some hikes
now he's got a more used to the water and the wind so he really doesn't get us scared anymore
whenever he hears the water he'll probably he usually just looks up at us like can you carry
me over this because he doesn't like to get his little paws wet but at least he doesn't run away
so while we're driving graham usually just sits underneath of the driver's seat if we're
super lucky he'll jump on our laps and we'll be able to cuddle while we're driving and if we're
even more lucky he'll sit on the dash he really just usually sits underneath the driver's seat
but when he really likes to sit on laps as well whenever it's cold usually if you open a window
he won't do it either he never used to cuddle like that whenever we would live in a house
so it was really cool the first time he jumped on our lap and wanted to sit while we're driving and
we could just chill with him because he would kind of just like sit near you but not on you before
so just like graham spots around the van he also needs some toys so that he doesn't get bored and
destroy all of our stuff graham has a scratch pad on his box on the side of his box and he also has
a face rubber we've replaced his scratch pad three times because he loves it and he goes nuts on it
we also rub some catnip in it sometimes and he goes absolutely insane graham's favorite toys
actually are hair ties if we leave our hair ties around the van he will immediately scoop them up
and either put them in his apartment or in the water bowl i don't know why and he'll play fetch
with us with hair ties if you get to the hair tie before he puts it in the water bowl and you sling
it across the van he will chase it for and bring it back to you a couple times before he gets like
bored or tired we also have a couple strings that he loves to chase around feathers and other kind
of cat toys something really important for any animal if they go outside is using flea and tick
treatment so we stay up to date on our flea and tick for sombrita and graham because sombrita
meets a lot of dogs and a lot of dogs don't stay up to date with them because sometimes
they don't have homes so i have reminders on my phone for graham and sombrita graham gets
frontline topical treatment and sombrita gets brovecto so the border crossings with graham
i really think that if we didn't have an enormous dog in our front seat they would have no idea that
we had a cat but since we have the dog and they're gonna open the door because they see the dog
they're eventually gonna see the cat and we have to have papers on for both of them
it's really important to have the paperwork every country needs our baby's vaccination certificate
so whenever we got somebody they gave us a folding card that has every treatment she's
ever had and also all of her information and in guatemala when we went to a
vet a couple of times he also gave us the same card for graham which we really appreciate
because you're gonna have to go to a lot of vets to cross all these borders
and if you have all of these different papers it's too many things to give them so just give them one
piece of paper one card and it has like every rabies vaccination he's ever had whether or not
he's sterilized how much he weighs everything all just on one paper so the vet can put everything in
their computer really fast and then they can fill it out for the next vet really quickly
that that card is invaluable for us most countries also need a health certificate to cross through
and these health certificates have to be done within the last three months so nicaragua to
costa rica was the roughest for crossing with animals we needed to have a health certificate
done by a nicaraguan vet and also they had we had to do a bunch of export papers and then
import papers for costa rica and we actually met a woman who didn't complete her export
papers and they wouldn't let her import the dog in costa rica so she had to redo some stuff so
that border crossing definitely do your research on i mean every border crossing you have to do a
lot of research and also panama to colombia was kind of hard but besides those four countries
almost every other country barely looked at the pets or the paperwork but you should definitely
do it on your own discretion if you feel like you should do every paper i we didn't really need
export papers but it's all up to you thanks for joining us we'll see you guys next time
you