The Animal Travel Influencers Taking Over the Skies

Souvenirs are an important part of any trip, but Shannon Dye did not expect to leave a weekend trip over a decade ago with a new family member. While in Delray Beach, Florida with her sister, the pair stumbled across a French Bulldog pup and fell in love. Dye’s sister got her the precious pooch—who quickly earned the name Lola the Terrible, but in a loving way—and the two began their adventures together.

Traveling since literally day one, Dye and Lola are part of a growing group of pet travel influencers blowing up social media channels with their adventures and antics. With over 20,000 followers on Instagram, Lola has worked with destination marketing organizations and hotel brands—using her winning personality and fabulous wardrobe to attract fans. Dye and Lola began by traveling short distances to meet up with other Frenchies, and Dye says people just fell in love with Lola’s adventures. “Since Lola and I made so many friends in Tampa, St. Pete, and Miami, it just evolved into road trips around the state of Florida to meet some of our Frenchie friends from Instagram,” she says. “Lola loves to take road trips, i.e. sleeping while I drive.”

Lola has had some romance on the road, too — meeting a Miami-based pet influencer named Gomi for his first birthday paw-ty. “It was love at first sight for both of them,” says Dye. “They became an Instagram couple and are still in a ‘long distance paw-lationship,’” she laughs. “it’s really a thing.”

When Lola isn’t making eyes at another Frenchie over a cocktail, she’s earning a living. Influencer marketing is a fast-growing sector — it’s expected to be an industry worth over $24 million by the end of this year. According to Pew Research, 40% of Americans follow influencers, and younger users are even more likely to be, well, influenced to buy products or travel to locations recommended by accounts they follow. Combined with the fact that Americans just love their pets (that’s a $140 billion-per-year industry), it’s no wonder that pet travel influencers are having a moment. While there aren’t exact stats on how many pets are hitting the skies while creating content, it’s hard to miss the uptick in four-legged travel experts on social feeds.

That pet obsession is why Erin Geldermans thinks the world fell in love with her cat, Liebchen. She and her partner Dan Schreck adopted the fluffy orange trendsetter in 2020 and realized quickly the feline had a case of wanderlust that was, well, catnip for internet fans. “I did not try to have a following. I did not try to be featured and stuff,” says Geldermans. She just began posting about his adventures to Instagram because she enjoyed sharing, and things took off quickly. “It was literally just kind of like a fun little hobby and it just has turned into basically my full time job now.” While she prefers to stay behind the camera, it brings her joy to see how much Liebchen means to his fans. “When they meet him, some people cry and are just so happy, like, so excited to meet him. And it’s so bizarre, but it’s pretty cool, the impact we have.” They consider those loving fans as part of their little family now, too.

“It was just fate,” says Geldermans. Liebchen loves to be outside, loves people, and loves to be with his humans. “We started hiking with him almost immediately. I would just take him in my backpack almost every day. We just bonded and became inseparable friends.” Geldermans says managing his account and commitments are now her primary source of income—something that’s not easy to do as an influencer. With close to 240,000 followers and multiple brand partnerships, it’s been a dream to support their adventures through influencer work, says Geldermans, even if she never set out to do that.

Traveling with pets does involve some legwork and prior planning, especially for international travel. Traveling pets must be well vetted with organized medical paperwork, first and foremost. Liebchen is heading to Switzerland soon—their first overseas trip. “We live in the mountains in Aspen, but it’s the Swiss Alps… It’s just next level and I’m so excited,” says Geldermans. She says the process to fly with your pet is usually straightforward — have your veterinary paperwork in order and get a vet check within 72 hours of arriving in a new country. This will be Liebchen’s first international trip, though, and hiccups do occur within the pet travel industry.

Jenny Hart, a full-time travel writer living in Mexico, travels with her cat Rajah when she has the opportunity—and shares his adventures on his own Instagram account. Hart has posted about bus travel mishaps and how to take a cat on a plane. Their next stop is Las Vegas for a pet industry conference where Rajah will be a paid product model, but they’ve had issues crossing borders before. “One of my more recent hiccups was presenting Mexican vet documents to the airline staff in the USA,” who could not read Spanish. “They tried to suggest that I should go to the vet on my visit back to get fresh (American) paperwork. And double my expenses? No thanks.”

Coco, a Samoyed who travels frequently around the European Union with his owner and travel expert Jennifer Dombrowski, educates people on his Instagram account about pet-friendly travel. Dombrowski says the EU Pet Passport program makes it easy to travel within Europe, but other countries have been trickier to navigate. “We’ve crossed some borders, like going to Albania, which have been a lot more nerve-wracking.” With a bit of research beforehand, though, Dombrowski says most planned trips are doable with your pet. She’s flown with Coco on K9 Jets so that she could write a review of private chartered flights just for dogs. There are a few private pet airlines, including Bark Air, that are making it easier than ever to travel with your pet—especially large breeds like Coco that don’t fit in a bag. “It’s more work figuring out how to travel with bigger dogs, especially if you don’t want to put them in the airplane hold, but it’s definitely possible.”

Once pets have landed and received the go-ahead to explore a destination, It can be difficult to find hotels that are truly pet friendly, as that phrase can mean many things. Lola and Dye have done promotions for several truly pet-friendly hotels in their travels, such as the Tradewinds Island Resorts in St. Pete Beach and Lowe’s Sapphire Falls Resort at Universal Orlando. She says that using hashtags like #petfriendlyhotel and #dogfriendly brings the traveling pet community together. “We even see posts from our friends visiting those same hotels after us posting about them,” she says.

It is more common for hotels to be dog-friendly than cat-friendly, though. Travel litter boxes, harnesses, and cat backpacks make it possible, but it may take more planning.

One Netflix-famous SurferCat, Mavi, spent 120 nights in hotels in 2023 alone. His owners, Kayla Tabish and Nick Liam Heaney (known to followers at CatMom and CatDad), say they’ve learned to call ahead about their specific needs. “We always call ahead and get clearance from a manager,” says Tabish. “We share tips on how to find cat-friendly hotels and we also share what to look for.” They try to pick spots that have a pet-friendly lobby bar and patio restaurant so that they can explore their destination and enjoy the home base, or hotel, throughout the trip without having to be confined to their room. After all, he didn’t travel across the globe to stare longingly out a hotel window like a basic housecat.

As to why this new class of influencers are in the spotlight right now? It’s an interesting and fun way to showcase amazing destinations, say these pet parents. “I think people love seeing new places through travel content and the pet angle adds a refreshing perspective,” says Tabish.

Geldermans adds that with fewer people choosing to have kids, pet-friendly travel content is alluring. Their followers see Liebchen’s adventures and think of possibilities. “I think it’s just so attractive to see how easy it is to actually travel with your pet… We love them so much and we hate leaving them at home.”

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