How cat videos are putting this Hilton Head spot on the map
Hilton Head Island is not stranger to travel and lifestyle influencers, but petfluencers are another breed.
Abram Engle, a social media personality known for making videos of his cats, paid a visit to Hilton Head Island during RBC Heritage this year.
Instead of posting about golf, beach bars or coffee shops, Engle took to the time to show his viewers one of Hilton Head’s hidden gems: a 1.3 acre open-air cat sanctuary on Beach City Road.
Run by All About Cats HHI, the sanctuary provides food, water and shelter for over 100 feral and stray cats that have been trapped, neutered and relocated to the property. Unlike a shelter, these cats roam around freely, and are not up for adoption.
Taking in the scenery, Engle told viewers he’d never seen anything like it.
“I would love just to go here and sit with a cup of coffee,” Engle told viewers. “And if I was a cat, I would love to hang out here and live here.”
Who is Abram Engle?
According to a Fox News profile about Engle, the Nashville local first went viral in December 2019 after posting a TikTok video of his cat, Kurt, dancing to “No Idea” by Don Toliver.
Since then, Engle has amassed more than 10 million followers on TikTok and more than 2 million followers on Instagram, where he continues to post videos of his two cats, Kurt and Gary. On YouTube, Engle films product reviews and other longer-form content for an audience of 2.6 million subscribers.
When Engle first reached out to All About Cats HHI, Co-President Joy Mossholder thought his name sounded “familiar.” Sure enough, when she looked up his name on Instagram, she discovered that she was already following him.
“I thought I was hitting the jackpot,” Mossholder said.
‘Like a Greek Island’
Engle’s visit isn’t the first time the spot has been featured online. The sanctuary was featured on Hilton Head Livin’s TikTok account in January 2025, and in October, a vet student influencer posted about the spot.
“Pov: you visit a cat sanctuary on Hilton Head Island,” reads the caption.
Before influencers began to post about the sanctuary, visitorship was limited, Mossholder said. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, the sanctuary can sometimes attract up to 100 visitors in a day, Mossholder said.
“The problem with that is the cats kind of end up hiding with too many people,” Mossholder said. “But the friendly ones are always out and ready for love, so it’s cute that way.”
Mossholder hopes word of the cat sanctuary will continue to spread. She’s working to ensure a piece of literature about Hilton Head’s community cats are put in every short-term rental on the island, so that tourists are informed of how they’re cared for and what resources are available.
“This island is kind of like a Greek island,” Mossholder said. “It just has so many cats wandering around.”
In the video, Engle called his experience at the sanctuary “so peaceful.”
“You had these large live oak trees with [moss] hanging down,” Engle told viewers. “The cats were just roaming around peacefully, laying down in their own little colonies with their friends and family. It was just something I’ve never seen before.”
Fans of Engle praised the cat sanctuary in the comments.
“I fully expect Heaven to look like this,” one commenter wrote.
