I am a veteran when it comes to traveling long distances with the felines in tow. In '94, I bid farewell to Florida and drove up to Boston in a Ryder truck with my late great cat, Frank N. Furter by my side.
In 2002, I drove BACK to Florida in a 12 year old Volvo 240. My beloved Frankie had gone to the bridge in '96, but I was now bringing back not only a husband but THREE, count em THREE cats.
The car was loaded down, and the two "Raptors" were confined to a hard plastic carrier in the back seat, while my grand old boy, Rocket J was in a soft sided carrier on my husband's lap. It was a bit of a squeeze. We all survived.
If the cats freak out, just play some nice music for them (or, in my case, Ramones and Oingo Boingo drown out their yowling after a while.) Ive never had to give them benedryl wrapped in turkey or things like that. For potty breaks, if they're not leash trained, I use a cat box filled with deodorized litter like Fresh Step and then contained in one of those black Hefty lawn and leaf bags (sometimes they're deodorized, too). At every rest stop, you can let the cats out of their carriers and open up the potty bag. If they have to go, they go. Make sure to keep the doors of the car closed and windows up, though, to avoid any panicked escapes if the cats decide to bolt or freak out or something.
Lets see, hotels tend to look the other way as far as cats go, or they have in my experience. If the hotel is one of those outside ones, you're in the clear, but unless the cat is yowling like crazy, its pretty easy to sneak the cat in past the concierge after you check in. Just use one of those luggage carts and put your bags on that. But again, cats are pretty well accepted usually.
One thing, if your cats are hiders, make sure they can't crawl under the bed. When my mom drove to Philly once, with my cat, the cat crawled inside the bed frame, and my mom had to get a maintenance man to help her wrangle the cat the next morning.
If I can think of anything else, I'll freep mail you--but feel free to freep mail me if you have any specific questions.
Hope that helps,
Reep
This is wonderful! Just the sort of info I was hoping for!
The litter box in a bag idea...that would work! We'll be fairly crammed in, but I can stuff that behind the seat.
Feeling better now...people look at me like I'm insane when I say I'm planning to bring a cat on (at least a) three day trip...