Looking for a place to take your cat to can be difficult – especially in Canada. Our fellow adventure cat pawrents in USA, Mexico and Europe can bring their cats to most restaurants and cafes! Every time I see their posts I get very jealous – check out our friends @vladsventures visiting a pottery store 😻😻
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Looking for a place
There are couple resources we use to find spots to go to. I usually start with Google Maps to find parks or green spaces that seem worth the shot. A lot of the times the information whether pets are allowed is right there or on the parks website. I find that British Columbia is really good with stating if only dogs are prohibited, or pets in general. Of course, you always need to be prepared to run into dogs even if they aren’t allowed in the location.
AllTrails app is another great resource. It lists all hikes/ parks/ walks near you, along with their difficulty level and states if pets are allowed. It pretty much does all the work for you 😜 Oh, and you can check users’ comments (and pictures) on the particular trail. I like to use this when we are away and are not familiar with an area.
Another great tool is the good ol’ Facebook. There are couple Adventure Cat groups where you could ask for any recommendations in your area. Or put a question on your local/ city’s group – asking for any parks they recommend.
For fellow British Columbians – there is a “BC Adventure Cats” group with a map of cat friendly places in the province!
For our take on looking for cat friendly accommodation – check our post
Factors to consider
Once I have a list of places I would like to visit, I like to go over them and check the following things…
How popular or busy is the spot?
Chumka prefers more quiet places so we try to avoid crowdy or popular sites – or we go during less busy season/ hours. We also check if the place allows dogs/ pets and whether they need to be on leash or not. Off leash dogs are a big “no, no” for adventure cats’ owners – even if your feline is used to them. You never know how they are gonna behave and a single “scare” can have a big impact on your pet.
How difficult or long is the walk/ hike?
Now this one largely depends on both your own and you cat’s abilities. I haven’t taken Chumka on any particularly long hikes (yet) but we are slowly working on it. I think the longest one we went on was about 1.5-2 hours total. We always carry our cat-pack so the kitty can chill in there when he’s tired. I highly recommend having a backpack whenever you’re out with you cat. Our first one was Pecute Pet carrier, you can read our review on it here.
Check reviews
If you are still in doubt, you can check reviews or even ask about the place on your local Facebook group. That’s why I love the AllTrails app – you can see what people say and even filter the comments to see the newest one first. It’s very useful when checking if the trail is open after winter season or if there is anything you should know about the trail.
Before you head out the door…
Before you head out the door, make sure that you have all the essentials packed. Check out what we bring along for our “daily adventures” for some helpful ideas.
I hope you found this post beneficial and please give your pet(s) some love from me 😊❤️
