Know the cat you are moving
A Turkish Van is not a generic cat with a forwarding address. This is a large, athletic, semi-longhaired breed, famously fond of water, quick to learn and strong in its opinions, and it bonds to its people with unusual intensity. Those traits decide how a move feels to her: the upheaval itself matters less than the disappearance of her routines and her humans' attention at exactly the same time. A move planned around a Van — her carrier rehearsed, her base room protected, her people briefed — is a move she can take in her stride. A move she simply endures, while doors stand open and strangers carry her world out piece by piece, invites an escape attempt from a cat athletic enough to succeed at one.
The weeks before: carrier, base room and records
Bring the carrier out now and make it furniture: door open, her bedding inside, meals and treats appearing in it, so that on the day it reads as her den rather than the vet-box. Designate one room in the old home as her base — bed, litter tray, scratcher, water and something that smells of you — and pack that room last of all. As boxes colonise the rest of the house, the base room stays constant, and so does her routine: same feeding times, same evening play, in a house that is otherwise dissolving. Update her microchip registration to the new address and your current phone number before moving day, not after, and keep her paperwork together with the documents you will need first at the other end.
Moving day: one closed door, no exceptions
On the day itself she goes into the base room with everything she needs and the door stays shut, with a large note on it — her name, and 'cat inside, do not open' — because movers open doors for a living. She travels last, after the noise, in her carrier in a quiet car; a light cover over the carrier helps cats who settle better in the dim. If she is a cat who panics at machinery and strangers, the kinder option is a planned stay with someone she trusts, arranged in advance rather than improvised on the morning. Never open the carrier in transit, and do not be tempted to console her on your lap in a moving car. At the new house, before she arrives, put toilet lids down and check the washing machine is empty and shut — with a Van, water is not a detail, it is the headline hazard.
Landing: one room first, then the world
Carry her straight into one prepared room at the new house: her unwashed bedding for the familiar smell, litter tray, water, food and a box to hide in. Open the carrier door and let her emerge on her own timetable, even if that takes hours. Keep her indoors for the first few weeks, until the house smells of her and she treats it as home, and open up further rooms one at a time as her confidence allows. Walk the house at cat height looking for her routes out — a window left on the latch, a gap behind the kitchen units — because a Van will find them on her first patrol. Before the day itself, share her profile with the relatives you select through Family Sharing on KinsLe, so those family members can open it when they need to.