PARIS, Jan 30 — Filou, a tuxedo cat with a flair for drama, has transformed what was supposed to be a relaxed summer road trip into the kind of cross-border saga that suggests he might be the only member of the family who actually read the itinerary.

According to media reports, the French feline slipped away during a holiday stop in Spain — only to reappear five months later after trekking roughly 155 miles (250km) back to his home in Olonzac, southern France, as if to say: Honestly, humans, must I do everything myself?

The adventure began in August, when Filou was travelling with his humans, Patrick and Evelyne Sire, in their camper van. A seasoned night prowler, he often vanished after dark and reappeared by breakfast, Patrick told France 3. It was all part of his routine: the Sires slept, Filou inspected the neighbourhood.

But during a pause at a petrol station between Barcelona and Girona, a window was left open — the feline equivalent of handing over a passport and saying, Bon voyage.

By morning, the Sires’ calls went unanswered. “We looked everywhere for him and couldn’t find him in the camper van after emptying it,” Patrick said. 

Realising their resident trickster had likely slipped out the window, they raced 250km back to the petrol station, filed a report with the Spanish Civil Guard and plastered the area with photos.

Even Bigotitos de Angel, a local group caring for feral cats, joined the search. But Filou was already halfway through whatever epic quest he had set for himself.

Months later — thinner, scruffier and clearly unimpressed by continental living — Filou resurfaced not in Spain but in Homps, a neighbouring French village just a kilometre from home. 

Helene Tisseyre spotted him in early December, describing him as “just skin and bones” when speaking to Le Parisien. She took him in, warmed him up and eventually brought him to a vet when he started coughing.

There, the truth emerged: this wasn’t a stray, but a determined French traveller with a microchipped address and a strong sense of direction.

On January 9, the Sires finally received the call they had been hoping for. 

When they arrived to collect him, “He was waiting for us behind the door,” Patrick recalled — a detail that suggests Filou considered himself the one doing the welcoming.

How exactly the tuxedo wanderer navigated all the way from a Spanish petrol station back to his village remains his closely guarded secret. 

His humans now hope to retrace his journey. “We are looking for people who may have seen him, helped him or given him shelter,” Evelyne said.

Until then, Filou retains his title as the undisputed master of the feline road trip — a cat who got lost abroad, found himself in France and reunited with his humans entirely on his own terms.