Guide · Updated September 2026

Collecting Cats While You Travel: A Souvenir You Can't Buy

You will forget the fridge magnet and lose the keychain in a drawer. But you will remember the cat that sat with you outside a cafe in a city where you did not speak the language, the one that walked you to a corner and then, its job done, wandered off.

Travel cats stick with you long after the fridge magnets stop registering, and you cannot buy the meeting. Every place has its own cats, shaped by its streets and its weather and how its people feel about them, and meeting them shows you how a place lives at street level. The famous destinations are worth knowing, and so is a way to keep every cat you meet along the road.

Why cats are the souvenir that lasts

A souvenir is supposed to bring a place back. Most of them fail at it, because a mass-produced object was never really about the place, it was about the gift shop. A cat you met is the opposite. It is specific, it happened only to you, and it carries the whole moment with it: the street, the light, the fact that you crouched down and a small creature decided you were worth investigating.

The problem is that travel cats, like all travel photos, drown. You come home with a thousand pictures and the perfect little tabby from a side street in Lisbon is now photo number 643, unfindable and slowly forgotten. To keep travel cats, you have to keep them as individuals, each with its place attached, not as anonymous entries in a camera roll.

The famous cat destinations

Some places have cats the way other places have cathedrals. If you plan trips around anything, cats are a wonderful thing to plan them around.

Istanbul, the cat capital

Istanbul is the one every cat lover names first, and it earns it. The city is home to an enormous street-cat population, with estimates running from the hundreds of thousands into the millions, and, crucially, the culture treats these cats as communally owned neighbors rather than strays to be removed. Shopkeepers feed them, people build little shelters, and the cats stroll through mosques and cafes like they hold the deed.

There are historical reasons. Cats arrived over centuries on trading ships to keep rodents down, and the old wooden city gave both mice and cats a foothold, so cats became a genuine civic asset. The 2016 documentary Kedi followed seven of the city's street cats and turned them into international stars. One cat, Tombili, became so beloved for a famous photo of her lounging on a curb that after she died, locals petitioned for and got a bronze statue of her in her spot. In Istanbul, a cat is not a stray. It is a resident.

Japan's cat islands

Japan has a scattering of small islands where cats famously outnumber people, a legacy of fishing communities that kept cats to protect silkworms and nets from rodents.

Tashirojima, in Miyagi Prefecture, has a cat shrine and a long tradition of treating cats as bringers of good fishing luck. Cats are looked after with real care here, and the tiny island draws cat pilgrims from around the world.
Aoshima, in Ehime Prefecture, became internet-famous for a cat population that once dwarfed its handful of human residents many times over. Know before you go that this is a story in motion: the island's cats have been neutered and the human population has dwindled to a few people, so its cat colony is expected to shrink over time. Check current conditions before you build a trip around it, and treat it as a fragile place, not a theme park.

Both are working reminders that "cat island" means a real, small community, not an attraction, so quiet respect is the price of admission.

And almost everywhere else

You do not need a famous name. Greek and Mediterranean islands are full of harbor cats. Kotor in Montenegro leans into its cats hard. Rome has its ancient ruins colonized by cared-for colonies. Nearly any warm port town, old market, or fishing village will hand you cats if you slow down and look. The joy is partly in noticing that every place's cats are a little different.

How to keep the cats you meet abroad

You are standing in a beautiful city and a cat has just adopted you for five minutes. How do you make sure it does not become photo 643?

The trick is to give each cat its own entry with the place attached, in the moment. This is exactly what Cat Collector is built to do, and travel is where it shines. It is a free iPhone app: catch a cat with your camera, the app checks that a real cat is in the frame, and out comes a hand-drawn die-cut sticker card stamped with the place and your name as finder. A few reasons it fits a trip:

Your collection becomes a map of where you have been. Because each card is tagged with its place, flipping back through your cats is flipping back through your travels. The Istanbul cat, the Kyoto cat, the one from that town whose name you never learned but whose cat you will never forget.
You can send the cats home as you go. Text a card's link to a friend or your person, they tap it, and that far-off cat joins their collection too, so a cat from three cities away becomes something you both keep. There is a whole two-person version of this in The Two-Player Cat Game.
They come home as stickers. Each cat joins your iMessage keyboard as a sticker, which is a much better trip memento than an emoji.

It is free and needs no email sign-up, and only real cats make it in, never AI ones. Two limits worth knowing: it runs on iPhone and iPad but not Android, and it is a collecting keepsake, not a welfare or lost-pet tool, so if you meet a cat abroad that looks sick or injured, the right move is a local shelter or rescue, not a collecting app.

Meet travel cats respectfully

Traveling well means being a good guest, and that goes double for the animals. Photograph from a comfortable distance and let cats come to you rather than reaching for them. Do not chase, corner, or pick up a cat you do not know, and do not feed cats against local guidance, since many cat-friendly places manage feeding carefully. On places like the Japanese cat islands and in cities like Istanbul, these cats are cared for by locals and are part of the community, so follow posted rules and local custom. You are visiting their home, not the other way around.

The collection you'll actually keep

Years from now, the receipts and the ticket stubs will be gone. But you will still have the cats: the harbor cat, the shrine cat, the one that walked you to the corner in a city on the far side of the world. Keep them as individuals, tag each with its place, and your travels quietly turn into a collection no gift shop could ever sell you.

Want a permanent record of your travel cats? How to Remember Every Cat You Meet covers the habit.

Sources and further reading

Frequently asked questions

What are the most famous cat destinations to visit?

Istanbul is the classic, with a huge, beloved street-cat population and the documentary Kedi built around it. Japan has cat islands like Tashirojima and Aoshima where cats outnumber people. Many Greek islands, Kotor in Montenegro, and countless port towns are cat-rich too.

Why is a cat collection a better travel souvenir than photos?

A photo of an Istanbul cat gets lost among a thousand trip pictures. A collection keeps each travel cat as its own thing, with the place and the moment attached, so years later you can flip through the actual cats you met in each city rather than scroll past them.

Can I collect cats abroad with an app?

Yes. Cat Collector is a free iPhone app where each cat you photograph becomes a collectible card tagged with the place you met it, so your collection doubles as a map of your travels. It works anywhere you can take a photo.

Where in Japan can I see lots of cats?

Japan has several cat islands. Tashirojima in Miyagi has a cat shrine and cats treated as fishermen's good luck. Aoshima in Ehime once had cats outnumbering people many times over, though its cat population has been neutered and is shrinking, so check current conditions before planning a trip around it.

Why does Istanbul have so many street cats?

Cats have lived in the city for centuries, arriving on trading ships to control rodents, and Turkish culture largely treats street cats as communally cared-for neighbors rather than strays. The city feeds and shelters them, and the 2016 film Kedi made them world-famous.

How do I photograph travel cats respectfully?

Shoot from a comfortable distance and let cats approach you. Do not chase, corner, feed against local guidance, or pick up a cat you do not know. On protected cat islands and in cat-friendly cities, follow posted rules, since these cats are cared for by locals, not strays to handle.