You will want to plan your trip out so that you can combine your stops. When you get gas, leave your car under the canopy with the windows open and pay inside, buying your drinks, etc. You will probably take less time than you think.

In the meantime, try to get your cats to think positively about their carriers - maybe feed them in their carriers or place their favorite toys in them - and leave the carriers out and open in a favorite room. You may even want to take some short practice trips with them.

Good Luck! It certainly can be done.

If you have room in your car you might try what my friend did when they moved from IL to AZ earlier this month. Instead on using a carrier, she went to a pet store and bought a large cage like you would use for a rabbit. She put food, water, and litter box in the cage and put it in the back seat of her daughters car. Her cat could move around and stayed cool since the outside is all mesh. The had their old english sheepdog in their car. When they were driving, the grabbed fast food and ate in the car. The cat and dog were fine for the short amount of time it took to run in. Since there were four people traveling in two cars, they could leave someone with the cars. If you are traveling alone, I would leave the windows cracked and stop for food at off peak times so you will not have to wait. Or go thru drive thrus so you only need to run in to make pitstops. If you are only driving a small car for 7 or 8 hours, if you fill the tank before leaving will you need to fill it again before you arrive? We drove from Cleveland to Chicagos western 'burbs and only topped up once, it was a 7 1/2 hour drive that day. We have a Honda CRV. We could have made it on the tank but my husband did not want to take chances.

You cannot leave your cats in the car with the windows up for any time at all, obviously. Find a shady place, leave the windows down, and accomplish your stop as fast as you can.

Could you leave very, very early or very late in the day so that your stops will be in the cooler part of the day?

You cannot leave the cats in the car at all in the summer. I was locked in a car last summer for about five minutes. It got very hot very fast. Put them in a carry case and leave the windows open. You shouldn't be driving with the cats loose anyway.

A car without ventilation, sitting in the hot sun in only 80 degree temperatures can get to over 100 degrees in less than 15 minutes, 123 in about a half an hour. To make certain your cat does not over heat, choose to park your car in deep shade, under a parking garage, or under a huge tree, if you can park near grass that will cool off the surrounding area by as much as 20 degrees. If you know it is going to be hot, make certain your A/C is on and the air is circulating to your cat. You can place ice packs under a towel or on top of a crate to keep her cool. If you are worried about the water condensation from the towel getting on things, put a laundry basket in the car a towel on the bottom and ice pack on that and a smaller kitchen towel type cloth on top of the ice pack. Provide plenty of water. Good luck, hope your travels are safe and wonderful

Will the cats be OK in the car for 10-15 minutes?"

No. Never mind the heat but the cats can get stolen.

How fast does a small car heat up in the summer sun?

Unhealthy level in as little as 2 minutes.

"What is the best way to handle unavoidable pit stops so that the cats don't die from the heat?"

Pack your own lunch and drinks, pee in the woods. If you're not anatomically constructed to pee in the woods then find out where the petsmarts/petcos are along your trip and take the cats inside the store with you in a carrier.

"The cats hate their carriers, hate car travel and are not going to appreciate moving to a new home. But I doubt there is much I can do about that."

That's right. Being in a carrier beats being dead or stolen, yeah?

Can you travel at night? That's what I did when I moved 24 hours (drove 16 alone the first day with a cat). It is cool enough at night that if you have to leave them for 10 minutes to run into a truck stop to potty, you can crack the windows an inch or two and be quick about it. The key to traveling alone at night is to plan your stops in places that are active and safe at night and stop before your tank is empty, that way if you don't like the looks of the place, you can go to the next one. I like big truck stops, last time I stopped at one of those in the middle of the night, it may as well have been day- for the people who were there, it was their daytime.

That old cat I use to put in a small dog harness and let her hang out wherever she saw fit. The cats I have now don't respect the driver's space, so they have to go in carriers. They don't much like their carriers, but do a little better if you drape a sheet over the sides of the carrier so they can only see out the front; it seems to give them an added sense of security.

Take food and drinks with you. That way you can find a shady place to sit and eat while you run the AC. 8 hours is not that long of a drive (in the scope of your life), your biggest issue will likely be potty breaks.

Take a cat friendly cleaner too (I use diluted vinegar), paper towels, some extra cloth towels (to use in the carriers), and a few plastic [garbage] bags. If you're prepared, then maybe no one will vomit or have some other kind of accident.

If it's even a little warm outside and the sun is shining, then don't leave the cats alone at all, the heat will build so quickly- try sitting in your car in the sun for a while and you will see exactly how fast that is. Even in the winter, a car parked in the sun will build a bit of heat. A couple years ago for my birthday DH built me a solar cook box, which is a really cool sun powered oven, but it works exactly the same as a closed up car! Not good!

Hope your trip is a good one.

I'm just going based on what I do for my cats in the house when they start panting and it's rediculously hot. I lay a damp towel down, which my calico loves. I put it near a fan and she'll go roll on the towel and get a little wet and the fan + water keeps her nice and cool. I wipe the black girl down with a damp, cool towel and that keeps her cool as well.

If your cats absolutely dispise being wet or wiped down with something wet, it might do more harm than good, on a stressful cartrip. But if not, park somewhere shady, put the air on, towards the cats and rub them down until they're as wet as you can get em with the towel, and then place the towel in with them. You might have to take a small cooler with a some cold water in it, to keep the towel in so it's readily available for you to use when you need to take a break.

The shade plus wet cats and the air, should buy you a few minutes of them being cool.

Thanks for all the replies! Do you know, it simply never occurred to me to drive at night--I think I am so much a morning person that night travel never crossed my mind. But it is probably the only way this will work. At least I have a solution! This has really been bothering me--I could work out food, drink and gas stops (just pack all food and drink; only need to fill up once), but bathroom breaks just seemed inevitable. Quirky--I use the woods when backpacking, but a) there is very little cover on the side of the road where I'm driving and b) there are all these signs about emergency stopping only--I can see it now, "But, Officer, it was an emergency--my bladder was about to explode!"

The trip is mostly on the Interstate and I've driven it many times before, just without the cats. The rest areas have spindly little trees which provide no shade at all. Leaving the highway to find someplace else to stop will only make the trip longer. The only part of the trip with nice, shady back roads is the first hour and the last 15 minutes.

I like the idea of a bigger crate for both cats. I think I will give that a test drive before we leave. They actually like their regular crates, which live in a corner of the living room. They sleep in them, hang out on top of them and use them as a place of refuge if the other cat is getting too "pouncy." It's just that when I put them in the crates and shut the door, they know something they won't like is about to happen. Usually the vet.

Munkos--thanks for the suggestions on how to cool down the cats. It's supposed to get into the 90's today and the older cat, who is 18, is already sleeping in front of the air conditioner. I'm going to try wiping her down to see if it makes her feel better.

But driving at night will solve my problem. So simple, and yet so impossible for me to think of! Thank you all!

Cammy