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Learn about the best pet insurance to travel with your cat, reviewed by our experts.
So, forget worrying about your pets, leave that at home and instead bring your four-legged buddy with you. And, to further nullify any worries you have about your pet tagging along, be sure to check out our pet insurance for cats. Now, we recognise there are extra considerations to take when taking your pets on holiday and that can make decisions complicated - with that in mind, we have compiled data to form a list of the best US destinations for you and your pet to head off and relax.
Pet friendly score
Coming out on top as the most pet-friendly city in the USA, is Portland, Oregon and with nearly 60% of the population being pet owners, you can begin to glean why. Ranking within the top 10 for the most dog-friendly restaurants, being 3rd for most dog-friendly hotels, as well as just shy of 300 veterinary services, Portland is a great place to visit with your pets.
Pet friendly score
Coming in 2nd place is Austin, Texas, a city with six cat cafes. It also comes in the top five for our cities with the most dog-friendly restaurants, having 34 in total just shy of nabbing a top three spot there. And with 247 veterinary services, you can be sure that this is also a place to take your pet and ensure their health is sound the entire trip.
Pet friendly score
And last but not least in this top three ranking is Seattle, in the state of Washington. Seattle has a total of two cat cafes, giving it a joint 3rd place ranking in that respect and on top of that, 29 dog-friendly restaurants, putting it in the top 10 there. And when all these factors are weighed together, Seattle managed to clinch 3rd.
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Percentage of pet-friendly hotels
With the highest percentage of pet-friendly hotels ranks Albuquerque, in the state of New Mexico - a city that was actually in the top five for Forbes list of best US cities for dogs. So, it’s no surprise that it’s the most accommodating location for pets in hotels.
Percentage of pet-friendly hotels
Just as Albuquerque did, Madison in Wisconsin, was also featured on the aforementioned Forbes list though, Madison, WI, was in the top 10 instead. This state also has 59% of the population as pet owners, the percentage for dog and cat owners was pretty evenly split at 33.6% and 32.4% respectively.
Percentage of pet-friendly hotels
And finally, also coming in the top five on the Forbes list for best cities for dogs is Portland, Oregon, having 58% of the cities hotels rated as pet-friendly.
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Number of dog-friendly restaurants
San Diego comes out on top for the highest number of dog-friendly restaurants - this is a city that is rather well known for the number of dog beaches that line its coast. With 54 restaurants to choose from, that should be more than enough choice for you and your canine to find some suitable grub.
Number of dog-friendly restaurants
Coming in at a narrow 2nd place we have Long Island, in the great state of New York, having a total of 49 dog-friendly restaurants, just five shy of the number one spot. The vast island, a few hours out from New York City, has a wide selection of other dog-friendly facilities, namely beaches.
Number of dog-friendly restaurants
The Big Apple, of course, features in this ranking, coming in 3rd is New York City with a total of 39 restaurants - giving you a fairly good selection of eating out options for you and your four-legged friends.
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Number of cat cafes
Any city that has as many as six establishments in which people can consume food and drinks alongside cats is sure to be considered cat-friendly, and number one in that regard is Austin in the state of Texas.
Number of cat cafes
Coming in 2nd place for this ranking is Chicago, Illinois and this city has half the number of cat cafes that Austin had. This is a rather remarkable number when you consider that in Illinois, only 21% of the pet-owning population has cats.
Number of cat cafes
In 2020, 30.5% of households in the state of Washington owned a cat, so it would make sense that Seattle would rank in this category, having a total of 2 cat cafes.
Number of cat cafes
Even in the swamps of Orlando, Florida there stand 2 cat cafes for all of you feline lovers, remarkable, even more so considering as of 2020 only 24.2% of pet-owning households had cats.
With cat-friendly restaurants being nowhere near as common as dog-friendly restaurants, we opted to look at cat cafes. However, with eateries being scarce for cat-lovers, make sure you check out our cat food reviews to ensure you bring the best food for your feline friend.
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Percentage of pet owners
Boise, located in the state of Idaho ranks 1st, with 69.9% of the population owning pets (as of 2020). And of those pet owners, 33.3% own dogs and 34.4% own cats, making it a pretty even split down the middle.
Percentage of pet owners
As of 2020, Missouri had a 63.5% population of pet owners, which places Kansas City joint 2nd place in this category. Specific split data for cats was unavailable, however, as of 2020 over 700,000 people owned cats in Missouri; while 45.1% of pet owners had dogs.
Percentage of pet owners
Our other 2nd place ranking is Bar Harbor, Maine, which had a pretty large percentage of cat owners – 43.6% of pet owners having a cat in this state. And dog owners made up 35.9% of the pet-owning population in 2020.
Percentage of pet owners
And finally, we have Seattle, Washington claiming 3rd place for the highest percentage of pet owners, with 62.7%. Of that pet-owning population, 42.8% owned a dog and 30.5% owned a cat.
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Number of veterinary services
Even on holiday, you must consider the possibility of your pets needing treatment. Aurora, Colorado has 454 veterinary services to choose from to get your furry friends feeling tip top again.
Number of veterinary services
Despite being one of the smaller cities on this listing, Glendale, Arizona has still packed in 409 veterinary services within the city limits. So, if your pet should need any help at all, Glendale has got you covered.
Number of veterinary services
With the sheer size of the city, it should come as no surprise that New York City has an assortment of 400 veterinary services. So, if you and your four-legged friends visit the city that never sleeps, assistance is plentiful should you need it.
And if all of these numbers aren’t enough for you, take extra safety precautions for your pet's health and have a look at our cat insurance ranking to be sure to get a good quote to keep your furry friend's bill of health clean.
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We began by compiling a list of the best cities for pets in the US, using sources such as Forbes and Timeout; some of these cities had to be cut due to the obscurity of data available at the time of writing.
To get the data for the pet-friendly hotels, we used Booking to take both the raw number of hotels and then the filtered number of pet-friendly hotels to then calculate the percentage of them that were pet-friendly.
We then proceeded to use Tripadvisor to get the data for dog-friendly restaurants and given that cat-friendly restaurants don’t appear to be the norm, we looked at the number of cat cafes in each location.
To get the final pieces of data, we looked at a study from 2020 found on Pawlicy and carried out by the AVMA to get the percentage of pet owners per state. Then we used The Yellow Pages to get the number of veterinary services that were available in each location we looked at.
Once we had all the data, we weighed all the factors to get a score out of 10 for each city to form our final ranking.
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