We are finally getting a kitten!! We've wanted one for such a long time however we didn't know if it would be possible whist living in our campervan. After lots of research and talking to many people who have lived and travelled in a van with a cat we decided to go for it. We believe we can give the best life to a little adventure kitty.
We have decided to go for a Maine Coon cat, this is because they are very trainable and typically happy to travel and go on adventures (lets hope this is the case for our little one).
We've put a deposit down on our kitten, Taco. Now we have a month to get the van prepared for his arrival.
Meet Taco, born on 2nd November 2023.
Tacos Den:
The first thing we wanted to do to the van is make Taco a little area of his own. This means we have sacrificed a lot of our storage space under the bed to make him a little den. We also built this area to make our electrics and also other bits in the garage not accessible as we don't want him getting anywhere that could be dangerous to him.
In his den we have his litter tray, toy box, cardboard scratcher and a scratching post. We actually made the scratching post by wrapping material around one of our bed uprights. Hopefully this means he will only scratch this and not the rest of the van (wishful thinking?).
We love how his den has turned out, with it being under the bed it means things such as the litter tray is hidden away but still very accessible and spacious for him.
Preventing scratching to our seats:
We have recently got our foam seats recovered, this was probably a mistake as we knew we wanted a kitten at some point but our old ones were so tatty. Of course cats scratch whatever they want and you can only try to prevent this. Our way to hopefully prevent our nice new seats getting scratched is to cover them with blankets to see if Taco does scratch these. In the ideal world he won't and we can take the blankets off and have our nice unscratched seats on show, probably covered in cat hair but still.
The other important thing is to provide him with enough scratching items as possible so that he can scratch as much as he likes without scratching the things we really don't want him too. As well as the under bed scratching post and his cardboard scratcher we have covered the bottom of our seats in a scratching matt.
Food and water bowls:
Food and water bowls are obviously needed when you have a cat, I just thought I would mention the ones we have got as I think they are pretty good for Vanlife.
Tacos food bowl is a raised ceramic bowl with a non slip matt. This is vital as when you live in a van everything needs a non slip matt. We plan on leaving this down when we drive as (hopefully) it will not be moving anywhere.
His drinking bowl however we will be picking up every time we drive as we don't fancy turning the van into a paddling pool. Tacos drinking bowl is just a tilted stainless steal one.
We will be keeping his food and water bowls by our main door just because it is then away from his litter tray. Yes, cats can be weird about eating next to their toilet. Although in a van we pretty much do that too (how lovely).
Blocking gaps:
We have one main gap we don't want Taco to try to get in, it is under our kitchen cabinets, it is a small space that doesn't really lead anywhere but we don't want him getting stuck etc. So we have brought a draft excluder for this, we spent a long time trying to find one big enough after many failed attempts we found one at Dunelm. It is important that he can't get anywhere that could cause him harm.
Camera:
We have brought a camera so that we can keep an eye on Taco when we are out the van. We don't plan on leaving him for long periods of time at all but for the times we do need to nip out, it is peace of mind that we can check that he is ok. This camera was from amazon, the set up was very easy and it seems good quality so far.
Suitable carrier:
It is important when travelling with a cat to have a suitable carrier. As Taco is a Maine Coon and will get pretty big we have gone for a small dog carrier so he has plenty of space. We have this on our front seat and it is secured in place by clips around the headrest.
Thank you:
If you have got this far then thank you for reading. We have made a full video on YouTube that documents us cat proofing the van. If you have any questions then please leave a comment below.
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