Traveling Full-Time with Pets

Gracen and Bae in White Sands National Park, NM

Hey there!

Today, I’m writing about how we travel with our pets. Sure, it takes some additional planning to travel with your pets. But if you’re like us, then I’m sure you can’t imagine traveling full-time any other way. We have an 11-year-old Border Collie/German Shepherd named Bae, and a 4-year-old orange tabby cat named Keke. We love bringing them along on our adventures! Our cat and dog both love the outdoors and Keke is leash trained. He loves being outside and exploring the space around our RV. We’ve recently started backpack training again–which didn’t go so well when he was a kitten but he seems to be enjoying it more now. I'll link our current cat backpack, which I really like, because it's expandable so Keke has some room to hang out when we're sitting outside somewhere! The backpack pictured below is his old one that I didn't like as much because it wasn't expandable.

Keke in his backpack on the beach, Bae & Keke riding in the truck, and Bae on a beach in Michigan.

There are a lot of things to consider when you’re planning to travel full-time with your pets; including space for them and their things, food storage, a supply of their medications (if any), their safety and more. I’m going to touch on these things today, and if I miss anything or you have any questions, as always feel free to reach out!

Prioritizing Space for the Pets

When I purchased my first travel trailer and even Aurora (our current RV), I intentionally chose bunkhouse layouts. These travel trailers have two bunk beds in one corner of the RV, typically for families traveling with children. I chose these layouts specifically for Keke to be able to live on the top bunk and Bae on the bottom. If you’re thinking of purchasing an RV and you have pets, definitely try to imagine where all of their stuff will go in each RV you look at. When looking at RVs myself, I remember thinking, “but where would I put Bae’s water bowl and kibble container?” And this is even trickier with a cat because they have so many more things–at least in our case!

In our current setup, the bottom bunk is too tall for Bae to use in her old age. Keke makes great use of the top bunk with his litter box, all of his toys, and his food bowls up there. However, with the full-size bunk bed and Keke on top, it made using the lower bunk for storage pretty difficult. So, this winter, while we were stationary in Texas visiting our families, we decided to cut the bunk beds in half to make better use of the space. We actually made a YouTube video on the renovation that you can access here. Oh boy, it paid off! Now we have drawers from the Container Store lining the bottom bunk, Austin’s instruments along the back wall, and Keke still lives in the upstairs haha. He actually uses the ladder which is hilarious.

Our bunkbed renovation, featuring Keke's top bunk space.

Food & Medication Storage

We use the first two smaller drawers in the bunk to store pet stuff—including their medications, wet food, litter bags, brushes, gear, etc. We also have a kitchen cabinet on the outside of our L-counter that we use to store their kibble and treats. I recommend getting kibble storage containers that fit in a certain space in your RV/van/etc. And then refilling those containers with kibble instead of keeping the bags. We store ours under the couch, pictured below. I think this is better for storage but the real reason we started doing this is because Keke would rip any bag of food, treats, ANYTHING open (orange cats, amiright?!). I touch on our pet organization and their space in our full RV tour on YouTube here.

Our pet food storage under the couch.

We lived in Austin, Texas for 6-months before heading out again in May of 2024. I also went to college in Austin, so I have a veterinarian there that I LOVE. We made sure to have all their vaccines and necessary checkups done before we left. I also stocked up on 6 months of their flea and tick prevention and Bae’s liver supplements. You can order these things online and have them shipped, but it’s nice to not have to worry about that for a few months while you're moving from place to place.

Their Safety

This is a big one and something I definitely fretted over in the beginning. I did loads of research to find something that would allow me to monitor the RV’s power and temperature while I wasn’t home. I finally found the MarCell Temperature Monitor–it allows us to monitor the temperature, humidity, and power supply while we are away from the RV. You buy the device, and then you have to pay a fee for the cellular service. The thing I liked about this one was that you could turn the services on and off whenever you want, and only pay for what you need.

You can pay monthly, seasonally (like 4-6 months), or yearly, and each is discounted accordingly. It will send an alert if the temperature or humidity rises above our set level or if the power goes out. However, for live updates on the temperature, you have to pay a small amount for these “SPucks” that are essentially little tokens for a live update. It seems like they have a lot more products similar to this now, but I bought this one in 2021, and I’ve been using it since! It’s wonderful for peace of mind.

Our MarCell temperature monitor and its app.

You do need electricity to power the monitor, and service on your phone to be able to receive updates. So, if we aren’t going to have service, we usually try to be where it’s 80 degrees or cooler outside (we try to do this anyways haha) or we’ll go do things earlier in the day while it’s cool from like 6am-noon and then come back before it warms up outside.

We also have these Blink cameras that we can set up in the RV to be able to see our pets from our phones. These cameras have a temperature monitor that you can check, however I like that the MarCell monitor will send me text alerts if the temperature is out of range or the power goes out. I'll link the 4th generation of these cameras here (note: we have the 3rd generation, pictured below).

Travel Days

On travel days, we will go for a walk and play before getting in the truck to make sure they have some energy out. I like to use these collapsible bowls and keep two reusable water bottles in the truck door for them. I usually bring Bae’s breakfast in the truck with her and Keke eats all the time (all the time!!) so he’s usually okay. We have a seat cover hammock in the backseat for Bae, and Keke likes to ride between us in the front seat. We also have a tote bag full of cleaning supplies for when emergencies happen–and they do!

We stop more frequently on travel days for them to go potty, get water, and stretch their legs. This is a huge benefit of having a leash trained, outdoorsy cat because Keke will go for walks and potty in tall grass!

Thanks for reading, let us know what questions you have.

Happy travels <3

Our life is one big road trip!