Pet travel is a substantial part of how owners plan car trips, flights and holidays. The statistics below distinguish reported behavior, planned intentions, hypothetical preferences, estimates and airline incident records across the United States and Australia.
Key Pet Travel Statistics
The most broadly useful figures include:
- 55% of U.S. dog owners and 36% of U.S. cat owners tailored travel plans around their pets in the 2024 report.
- 88% of U.S. dog owners and 90% of U.S. cat owners reported car travel with their pets during the prior year.
- 68% of U.S. dog owners and 80% of U.S. cat owners reported plane travel with their pets during the prior year.
- 34% of U.S. dog owners took at least three car trips with their dogs during the prior year reported in 2024.
- 54% of surveyed U.S. pet parents planned to bring pets on holiday travel during the 2025 holiday season.
- 51% of surveyed U.S. pet parents planned holiday car travel with pets in 2025.
- 70% of surveyed U.S. pet owners preferred an eight-hour road trip with a pet to a two-hour flight in September 2023.
- 24% of surveyed U.S. pet owners said difficulty finding pet-friendly accommodation limits how much they travel with pets.
- 72% of surveyed U.S. pet owners reported changing travel plans to accommodate a pet in September 2023.
- $242 was the average planned U.S. pet-travel spending per respondent for the 2025 holidays.
- 62% of surveyed U.S. pet owners said they would pay more for pet-friendly lodging so their pet could accompany them.
- 32% of surveyed U.S. pet owners had left a dog at home because their car felt unsafe in a 2019 survey.
- 13% of surveyed U.S. pet owners admitted being distracted by a pet while driving in 2019.
- 61% of surveyed Australian pet owners reported traveling with their pet for up to four hours in one sitting in September 2024.
- 138,843 animals were transported by reporting U.S. airlines in calendar year 2023.
- U.S. reporting airlines recorded eight animal deaths, one injury and no lost animals in 2023.
- 0.65 animal incidents per 10,000 transported animals were reported by covered U.S. airlines in 2023.
- 6% of U.S. pets were estimated in a cited study source to board a plane each year.
Contents
- Key Pet Travel Statistics
- How Often Owners Travel With Dogs and Cats
- Pet Travel by Car, Plane and Road Trip
- Pet-Friendly Accommodation and Travel Planning
- Pet Travel Costs and Willingness to Pay
- Pet Travel Safety, Restraints and Driver Distraction
- Air-Travel Animal Volumes and Reported Incidents
How Often Owners Travel With Dogs and Cats
APPA’s 2024 Dog and Cat Owner Insight Report separates dog and cat owners and reports behavior during the prior year. Its figures are self-reported and should not be treated as a count of vacation trips alone.
| Reported measure | Dog owners | Cat owners |
|---|---|---|
| Tailored travel plans around the pet | 55% | 36% |
| Traveled by car with the pet in the prior year | 88% | 90% |
| Traveled by plane with the pet in the prior year | 68% | 80% |
| Took three or more car trips in the prior year | 34% | 30% |
| Took three or more plane trips in the prior year | 22% | 22% |
Source: The American Pet Products Association (APPA) Releases 2024 Dog and Cat Owner Insight Report. The three-or-more categories are thresholds, not complete trip counts, and car travel can include routine journeys.
Compared with 2022, the share of dog owners taking at least three car trips rose from 26% to 34%, while the comparable plane figure rose from 13% to 22%. Among cat owners, the car figure rose from 21% to 30% and the plane figure from 14% to 22%; these are survey comparisons rather than causal trend estimates.
Routine travel is also common. In 2024, 53% of U.S. dog owners took their dogs in the car for errands or routines at least weekly, and 15% took them along daily, compared with 10% in 2018.
Pet Travel by Car, Plane and Road Trip
Holiday intentions point strongly toward road travel. Adopt a Pet reported that 54% of surveyed U.S. pet parents planned to bring pets on holiday travel in the 2025 holiday season; 51% planned to travel by car and 3% planned to take planes.
The same survey reported different planned participation by generation: 56% of Millennial respondents, 51% of Gen Z respondents, 49% of Gen X respondents and 40% of Boomer respondents planned to bring a pet. State results ranged from 92% in Wisconsin to 18% in Montana, with subgroup precision and self-reported intention limiting direct comparisons.
Source: Adopt a Pet Survey Reveals Over Half of Americans Will Travel With Pets This Holiday Season. Planned travel is not completed travel.
A September 2023 Upgraded Points survey of 1,000 regular travelers found that 70% of pet owners preferred an eight-hour road trip with their pet to a two-hour flight. Among pet owners who fly, 59% said they keep the pet in its carrier for the entire trip, while 26% let the pet out at some point.
| September 2023 preference or behavior | Reported share |
|---|---|
| Pet owners preferring an eight-hour road trip to a two-hour flight | 70% |
| Pet owners who fly keeping the pet in its carrier throughout | 59% |
| Non-pet owners uncomfortable sharing a cabin with another pet | 34% |
| Non-pet owners preferring a pet beside them to a child | 57% |
| Non-pet owners preferring an eight-hour animal-free road trip to a two-hour flight beside a pet | 45% |
Source: New Upgraded Points’ Study Uncovers Costs and Preferences When Traveling with Pets. These are stated preferences and self-reported behavior, not transportation shares.
Pet-Friendly Accommodation and Travel Planning
Accommodation and planning constraints shape whether owners travel. In the Upgraded Points survey, 24% of pet owners said difficulty finding pet-friendly accommodation prevents them from traveling more with pets, while 17% called pet-friendliness their first planning priority and 59% prioritized it when it aligned with other preferences.
The survey also found that 72% of pet owners had altered travel plans to accommodate a pet’s needs. The release separately described 37% doing so occasionally and 9% frequently, so those frequency categories should be retained as published rather than treated as a complete partition.
- 33% of surveyed U.S. pet owners would choose to vacation anywhere with their pets rather than visit a dream destination alone.
- 25% of surveyed non-pet owners said they would never stay at an Airbnb marketed as pet-friendly, while another 20% would do so only as a last resort.
Source: New Upgraded Points’ Study Uncovers Costs and Preferences When Traveling with Pets. The accommodation figures describe attitudes and planning perceptions, not booking records.
Australian results provide a different geography and survey frame. In a weighted online September 2024 survey of 1,000 Australian adults aged 18–69, 62.5% of surveyed pet owners said they take pets on holiday because the animals are part of the family, and 41.6% said they do so to continue looking after them personally.
23.4% said they always stay in pet-friendly accommodation when traveling with pets.
Source: Australian Dog and Cat Care Survey 2024. Response options could allow multiple reasons, and the accommodation figure is not the share of lodging inventory.
Pet Travel Costs and Willingness to Pay
Adopt a Pet measured planned spending rather than audited expenditure. U.S. pet parents planned to spend an average of $242 per respondent on pet travel during the 2025 holidays.
| U.S. subgroup | Average planned pet-travel spending, 2025 holidays |
|---|---|
| Gen X | $281 |
| Millennials | $277 |
| Boomers | $257 |
| Gen Z | $248 |
| Men with pets | $277 |
| Women with pets | $271 |
| Maryland respondents | $396 |
| Pennsylvania respondents | $165 |
Source: Adopt a Pet Survey Reveals Over Half of Americans Will Travel With Pets This Holiday Season. State and demographic subgroup budgets may reflect sample composition and are self-reported plans.
Willingness-to-pay measures show how owners value convenience, but they are not receipts or actual premiums. Upgraded Points reported that 62% of surveyed pet owners would pay more for a pet-friendly hotel or Airbnb, and 64% would pay an additional $50 per night for pet-centric amenities.
Non-pet owners in that survey assigned an average hypothetical value of $94 to never sharing an airplane cabin with another passenger’s pet again. This is an avoidance valuation, not a fare, fee or observed transaction.
For broader context only, APPA reported $158 billion in total U.S. pet-industry expenditures in 2024. That estimate includes broad pet-industry categories and is not pet-travel spending.
Source: Pet Industry Market Size, Trends & Pet Industry Statistics from APPA.
Pet Travel Safety, Restraints and Driver Distraction
The available road-safety figures are survey perceptions and self-reports, with the Volvo/Harris Poll results dating to 2019. Thirty-two percent of surveyed U.S. pet owners had left a dog at home because they felt their car was not safe enough, and 77% of surveyed Americans said people do not take vehicular dog safety seriously enough.
The same report found that 13% of surveyed U.S. pet owners admitted becoming distracted by their pet while driving. In a small June–July 2019 observational follow-up, researchers studied 15 licensed drivers who drove with a dog at least 25 minutes per day, observing about 15 total hours; the convenience sample defines the evidence base and is not a population estimate.
Hypothetical preferences also appeared in the 2019 survey. Fifty percent of surveyed Millennials preferred a road trip with their dog over one with their family, compared with 39% of all respondents, while 40% of Millennials preferred a weekend getaway with their dog over one with their partner, compared with 28% of pet owners overall.
Source: Study: Unrestrained Pets Increase Stress and Distraction on the Road. These figures are older than the other travel surveys and come from a non-probability sample.
Australian duration responses add context without measuring mileage. In September 2024, 61% of surveyed Australian pet owners said they travel with their pet for up to four hours in one sitting, 12% reported up to six hours and 6% reported more than six hours.
The same source labels 21% as selecting one-hour stops as the second-most-popular travel-duration response, but its wording is ambiguous about whether that means trip length or stop interval.
Source: Australian Dog and Cat Care Survey 2024.
Air-Travel Animal Volumes and Reported Incidents
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Air Travel Consumer Report provides administrative-style reporting for covered carriers and defined animal categories. In calendar year 2023, reporting airlines transported 138,843 animals and reported eight deaths, one injury and zero lost animals.
| DOT measure | 2022 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|
| Animals transported | 188,223 | 138,843 |
| Reported animal incidents | 9 | 9 |
| Incidents per 10,000 animals | 0.48 | 0.65 |
Source: Air Travel Consumer Report: September 2024 Numbers and 3rd Quarter Numbers. The DOT-reported rate applies only to covered airline animal transport, and the 2022–2023 difference does not establish a causal trend.
Monthly reporting also varied. Carriers reported zero animal deaths, injuries or losses in September 2024, compared with two incidents in August 2024 and one in September 2023; monthly totals can fluctuate with volume and reporting timing.
A peer-reviewed owner-reported study cited an estimate that 6% of pets in the United States board a plane each year, and that dogs make up 58% of pets traveling worldwide. Those are cited estimates from underlying sources, not new administrative counts.
Within that study sample, 24.9% of respondents said their dog had been cared for at a dedicated airport animal lounge at least once, 8.4% said their dog did not visit one, and 16.7% did not know what such a lounge was or where their dog was cared for. These are owner-reported study results, and not all airports offer an animal lounge.
Source: How Well Do Dogs Cope with Air Travel? An Owner-Reported Survey Study.