Cats just soft‑launched their world domination plan, and the internet caught it in 4K. After the “Supermodel Cats” subreddit went wildly viral again this week—flooding feeds with moody, model‑level felines—it’s pretty clear: we’re just travelers passing through their planet. So let’s lean into it.
If cats are going to rule, the least we can do is visit their strangest, most off‑the‑rails kingdoms. These are not your standard “cute café and a latte” stops. These are full‑blown weird cat worlds: islands, shrines, cult‑level cafés, and an accidental Soviet monument where the unofficial mayor is a ginger tom.
Below are five real, gloriously bizarre places where cats are not just pets—they’re the main event, the local government, and sometimes the actual reason people cross an ocean.
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The Island That Belongs to Cats: Tashirojima, Japan
If Animal Crossing had a feral, unsupervised cousin, it would be Tashirojima. This tiny island in Miyagi Prefecture has gone viral again as cat content surges online, but the reality is even stranger than the Instagram edits. There are hundreds of cats here and only a few dozen human residents. The math is not in our favor.
Originally, fishermen believed feeding cats would bring better catches and prosperity. They never stopped. Now cats roam the harbor, the narrow streets, even the guesthouses, padding through scenes that look like Studio Ghibli was handed a camera and no script. There’s an actual cat shrine (Neko Jinja), tiny cat‑shaped lodgings, and signs politely reminding you that yes, this is their home, you’re just the paparazzi.
You don’t come to Tashirojima for nightlife—you come to slowly lose your grip on the idea that humans run this planet. The ferry ride from Ishinomaki is short, but the mental reset is brutal: no convenience stores, minimal Wi‑Fi, and a lot of yellow‑eyed locals judging your snack choices. Bring cat treats, leave expectations.
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The Street Where Every Door Has Whiskers: Kotor’s Feline Old Town, Montenegro
Kotor, Montenegro, is technically a UNESCO‑listed medieval town. Unofficially, it’s a highly organized cat commune with charming stone architecture. Travelers stumble in expecting fortresses and fjord‑style views; they stay because a tabby has annexed their backpack.
After the Balkan wars in the 1990s, a lot of pets were left behind. In Kotor, the cats stayed, multiplied, and quietly took over. Now they nap on Roman ruins, drape themselves on café chairs, and casually photobomb every shot of St. Tryphon’s Cathedral. Locals leave out food and water, and there’s even a Cat Museum dedicated to feline postcards, prints, and vintage weirdness.
The weird place energy comes from the contrast: you’ll climb ancient city walls for a jaw‑dropping Bay of Kotor view, only to find a cat already there, utterly unimpressed, sitting exactly where your heroic summit selfie should be. You thought you were the main character—turns out you’re just background NPC in a very long‑running cat story.
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The Cat Shrine in a Cheese‑Obsessed Cathedral: Kutná Hora, Czech Republic
Kutná Hora is best known for the Sedlec Ossuary, that infamous bone church made from the skeletons of thousands of people. Tourists come for skull chandeliers and gothic nightmare fuel. But wander away from the main route and the town quietly gets… feline.
Local cafés and side streets have started leaning into an odd micro‑trend: cat‑themed shrines, mini altars, and graffiti that turns old religious iconography into feline saints. In the past year, social media posts of these “underground cat corners” have spiked, riding the same wave that’s boosting “Supermodel Cats” and other surreal pet aesthetics online.
In one backstreet, there’s a tiny shrine wedged into a wall niche: candles, saintly cat images, offerings of cheese (because Czech people), and written notes thanking the “Holy Cat” for exam passes and break‑up recoveries. It’s half joke, half sincere, and totally on brand for a town that already decorates churches with human bones. Think of it as a pilgrimage site for travelers who collect the absurd: a mash‑up of medieval piety and meme culture manifested in stone alleys and whiskers.
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The Café That Feels Like a Cult Meeting: Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium, London
Cat cafés are everywhere now, but London’s Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium in Shoreditch operates on a slightly more unhinged frequency. It opened as the UK’s first cat café, survived the pandemic hospitality purge, and is now thriving in the era of hyper‑curated cat content and “Supermodel Cats”‑style perfection. Except here, the cats are gleefully imperfect.
Inside, the lighting is theatrical, the décor is Victorian‑tea‑party‑meets‑Pinterest‑witch, and the cats behave like they’ve unionized. They clock out when they want, they ignore you mid‑selfie, they choose one random stranger to sit on and then never repeat that choice. The staff will brief you like you’re entering a sacred order: no flashes, no chasing, no waking the void‑staring furball under the chair.
The weirdness hits after about 30 minutes. Everyone is whispering in a room full of animals who do not care that you bought timed entry and a slice of cake. You’re paying to be quietly judged by professional loungers while sipping Earl Grey in what feels like a very soft occult gathering. If traditional London is Big Ben and Buckingham Palace, this is the parallel universe where the city’s real aristocracy purrs on floating shelves and lets you stay—as long as your vibes are correct.
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The Soviet Resort Run by a Cat Mayor: Gagra, Abkhazia (Sort Of)
Along the Black Sea coast in the partially recognized region of Abkhazia lies Gagra, a surreal fossil from Soviet vacation dreams. Think decaying grand hotels, broken funiculars, palm trees growing through concrete—and a cat population that has decided this whole failed resort is theirs now.
While not an official headline‑grabber like Japan’s cat islands, Gagra has gone low‑key viral in recent travel subreddits and TikToks: crumbling sanatoria draped in ivy, and always, always, a cat in frame. The most famous is an orange tom that locals jokingly refer to as the “mayor.” He appears in café videos, on balconies, in abandoned hallways, like a furry glitch in the matrix.
The place feels like a Cold War fever dream asset‑flipped into an open‑world cat RPG. You wander through empty colonnades and faded mosaics of athletes and cosmonauts while cats stalk the tiled corridors like spectral residents who never checked out. It’s weird, political, beautiful, and unsettling: a reminder that even ideologies crumble, but the street cats? They adapt, reorganize, and take over the lobby.
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Conclusion
In a week when “Supermodel Cats” is trending and the internet is collectively agreeing that felines might actually be the main species, these places feel less like destinations and more like portals to Planet Meow.
If your usual itinerary is “top 10 must‑see landmarks,” consider throwing that out. Chase the weird instead: islands run by cats, medieval towns subtly worshipping them, bone‑church cities with feline shrines, cult‑energy cafés, and Soviet ghost resorts where the de facto mayor has paws.
Book the flight. Pack the treats. And remember: in these corners of the world, you’re not the traveler discovering cats—the cats are evaluating you as a temporary, mildly amusing visitor to their very strange, very real kingdoms.
Key Takeaway
The most important thing to remember from this article is that this information can change how you think about Weird Places.
