What’s right, or wrong, with this picture? That depends on your particular set of allergies, thoughts about hygiene, and love of furry feline creatures.
Budapest is home to one of the new breed of cat cafe’s springing up around the world. They are either the best friend to a traveler who need an occasional feline fix (such as ourselves) or a complete house of horrors to those who despise cats, or just hate the thought of dining with one. We found this one around the corner from our apartment, and after about five seconds of debate, decided that we needed to check it out.
Here the cats roam around freely. According to the waitress, this black and white one pictured below waits for the opportune moment to hop onto your toasty keyboard for a catnap.
There are plenty of spots for the cats to hang out, or to make their escape if needed from young sticky fingered ones.
The idea isn’t a new one, there are cat cafes in several cities, such as London, Paris, Singapore, Chiang Mai, Thailand and in Oakland, California. We’ve provided the links, just in case you are in one of these cities and need to experience one of these places for yourself. Some of the cafes have taken in the cats and who now consider the cafe their home. Others focus on cat adoptions.
What do you think? Would you consider visiting a cat cafe while traveling?
You can find the Cat Cafe in Budapest Hungary here:
CAT CAFE
Love cat cafes! Didn’t realize there’s one in Budapest. You can also find them in Munich, and Vienna.
It seems like everyone needs their “cat fixes”….
I love the cat theme cafe. It’s the kind of place you couldn’t have in the US.
I don’t know – I think they have a few in the US.
Nice that they seem to have a big space to roam around. They look healthy and well taken cared of.
Yes, they did seem to be. It was a cool experience.
This is a fantastic twist on the usual cafe experience. Next time I’m in Budapest, I’ll have to check this place out.
More and more of them are popping up everywhere.
haha the cats look o fluffily! I have been to the ones in Singapore (there are many these days!) and always enjoy a good stroke something very relaxing about stroking a cat…
Yes, it’s very relaxing!
To be honest, I love cats, I have 3. But I’m not sure about cat cafes. I know sometimes that the cats are given catnip (obviously it depends on the cafe) and such to make them more placid, which I don’t think is right. And I think some people are idiots around cats, not reading their signals right and annoying them just because they or their children want to pet the fluffy animal. But as long as someone in the cafe is watching out for these kinds of people and making sure that the cats aren’t getting hassled then I’d be fine with it. It would be nice to get a feline fix when I’m away from home.
I completely understand. Similar to the tiger temples in Thailand, right? This cafe actually had a staff member who’s job seemed to be walking around and helping people (particularly kids) in interactions with the cats, so that was kind of cool.
These cat cafes sure are popping up everywhere! We’ve yet to go to one – or any pet cafe for that matter – but always keep our eye out for one! A little time spent with animals is always a mood lifter!
Yes, they’re becoming quite popular.
Hmmmm lol these really are pooping up everywhere, it’s the third or fourth time I’m actually hearing about the concept now. I think I would go in to check it out for the novelty of it, though I’m unsure as to whether or not the whole dining experience would be for me – I have a huge OCD for loose hair lol which is one of the reasons why I don’t own a cat – though never say never, I’m always willing to try something at least once, and who, knows, I may just be surprised!
Thanks for the feature!
Yeah, we enjoyed it completely for the novelty of it. Although, we do miss not having pets on the road…
I really like cats and my parents have 3. The most important thing is that the cats feel comfortable hanging around strangers, which apparently they do! Need to check out the London one soon.
These guys were pretty comfortable with us. One tried to take a nap on my keyboard.
I’m going to be honest, I am incredibly allergic to cats so this would be my nightmare! However, it does look very cool and I’m sure the cats and patrons love the concept. Now, if there was a dog cafe I would be all over that. I think there’s a cafe in South Korea that has goats and other farm animals so maybe dogs are that far off! Cool concept!
Understood. I think there’s even a bunny cafe in Japan. That’s going a little too weird for me, though.
Ok… I had to check the date on this to make sure it wasn’t April 1st. Seriously, cat cafes??!!
I know. We seriously thought about waiting to April 1st to post this. 🙂
I have heard a lot more of these popping up around the world. Animal cafes seem to be especially popular in Japan. Cats are cool although I prefer dogs. I would probably only go to say I went, but not as something I would do often other than that.
Yeah, we really just went as a lark, and since it was right around the corner from our apartment. The WIFI and coffee were good though, so I could see us going again.
I love cat cafes. I would like to visit such cafe once. The idea of hanging out with cats is amazing. Thanks for the beautiful blog.
Thank you Tracy! Now I’m on the hunt for a cat cafe wherever I go.