I took my cat on holiday with me – it was so good we visited 100 towns, cities & villages | World | News

Meet Gigia, the world’s first feline travel guide, who toured Italy with her owner, racking up a staggering 11.5 million video views of her purr-fect adventures. Jasmine L Quan, 63, first met and adopted Gigia in 2021 when the kitten’s stray mother had a litter while living in the veggie patch of a farmer’s house in the village of Gaiarine, in Treviso.

But when Jasmine decided to travel the length and breadth of Italy to heal her emotional wounds after an eight-year divorce battle, she couldn’t bear to put Gigia in a cattery, so she brought the puss with her. Together, the daring duo clocked up more than 20,000 miles, visiting more than 100 cities, villages and towns, as well as tourist hotspots, piazzas, villages, mountains and monuments, winning an army of fans along the way.

As the modest moggy thrilled passers-by in every town – posing for photographs with tourists, doing acrobatic tricks, and shaking paws – she started to clock up millions of Google Maps review videos.

Now the pair have pawed through their memories to pen a book – Gigia’s Italy: A Cat’s-Eye View – while the feline even has her own website https://gigiatravelcat.com/

Jasmine, of Treviso, told us: “The first trip we went on after I adopted her I expected protest, panic and possibly a shredded car interior!

“But to my surprise, Gigia was so quiet when I picked her up from the village garden patch.

“We went to Valdobbiadene (about 20 miles from Treviso) where there was a small café in a village square. The owner produced a bowl of water and scratched her chin without hesitation.

“Years later, Gigia and I have travelled all over Italy. I stopped planning routes around famous sights and instead started taking her best interests into consideration, looking for places that might be interesting to her.

“In Abruzzo, Gigia disappeared into the rocks at Ripari di Giobbe in pursuit of lizards while I jogged along the beach calling her name in three languages.”

After setting off on their four-year adventure proper, they first went to Piacenza, expanding to visits to Ravenna and Comacchio, before heading to Alassio, in Liguria.

Now, five years later, they have visited 14 of Italy’s 20 regions, as far south as Calabria, including the famous Tropea and the ancient hilltop village of Scilla, and as far north as Cortina d’Ampezzo in Veneto.

They have been as far west as Sanremo in Liguria and as far east as Trieste in Friuli Venezia Giulia, posting videos on Google Maps reviews along the route.

Gigia became so popular that Jasmine set up the travel website so fans could track her travels.

Explaining how their initial trips around Italy started to gather a huge social media following, Jasmine told us: “I began to write and shoot videos simply to record them for myself.

“Strangers online and others we met along the way asked how on earth I was managing it.

“But people always wanted photographs of Gigia sitting in cafés, inspecting ancient doorways, staring thoughtfully and high-fiving fans at vineyards.

“I realised we were onto something when Gigia’s Google Maps reviews started attracting thousands of views. After a while, Gigia became a celebrity in her own right!

“People began to recognise her everywhere we went, café owners remembered her and strangers asked for photographs.”

Gigia would always be on a lead for her own protection and to keep her safe, in case of any passing pooches or other animals, cars, and motorbikes.

But travelling with a cat also turned out to be a remarkable test of Italian hospitality.

Jasmine explained: “We stayed in agriturismi (working farms) surrounded by vines, small B&Bs run by families for generations and guesthouses overlooking quiet squares.

“Gigia received warmer welcomes than I did. Water bowls appeared before I had taken my coat off. Owners shared stories about their own cats, and waiters greeted her like a returning regular.

“At Osteria al Forno di Agnese in Civita di Bagnoregio, we were given a table one lunchtime when they were fully booked. Essentially, they made space for us because of Gigia!”

And giving her view on the best Italian town or city they visited, Jasmine admits she is slightly biased toward her home city, Treviso, in the Veneto region of northern Italy, often dubbed “Little Venice.”

She said: “While the world fights for space in nearby Venice, I choose Treviso every time. It offers a perfect, sophisticated balance of history, a refined drinking culture, and high-end gastronomy without the crowds.

“For Gigia, it’s a paradise of quiet, shaded canals and medieval ‘intermediate spaces’.

“It serves as the ultimate gateway: within an hour, you can be sipping Prosecco in the Asolo hills, wandering the most beautiful village of Cison di Valmarino, or breathing the crisp air of the Dolomite Mountains.”

Now, whether you travel with a cat or not to Italy, Gigia and Jasmine provide a different view of Italy – through a pair of emerald cat eyes – with their book.