First off, the money is meaningless. So you get a bump in pay. If you are only staying for a year it won't make a bit of difference in the long term. The total added value of the move can be calculated fairly explicitly, and the value of the move is that sum of money minus the added expenses of the move, which there will be some. If you were considering this long term, then the calculation would be different because it would increase your average income and have retirement ramifications, but for a one year stint it is basically just a single bonus payment.

You'd have to take the cats. After all, if you did not, they would kill you in your sleep as soon as your returned home. Cats are like that. They are patient, careful, plotters, but predictably both relentless and ruthless (do you know anybody named Ruth? No? Of course you don,t. The cats took care of that).

Other than that, I'd be inclined to go for it. I may not be a very good person to listen to on this, though, considering that I wander off into the woods for weeks (and it would be months if I could get the time) on end. In my case, I work for a single company, and have for some 16 years. I could EASILY increase my pay by going elsewhere, but no other job would be likely to be so enjoyable, nor would it be possible to find better coworkers, so I tend to be be quite loyal and would not, myself, take such a job as this one. However, you have mentioned before that you do contract work, so you don't have the bounds of loyalty to deal with (at least not loyalty to a particular set of colleagues or a particular company). You probably don't have any built-up, company-centric, long-term investing to deal with. This makes life more flexible for you when it comes to the job. Therefore, as long as the cats can go, and as long as you feel that the stint would really be only about a year, then I'd say you might as well go for it. If it doesn't work out then you'll know something important. On the other hand, right now you have a study with N=1 as far as working away from your comfort base, so a second data point would be worth obtaining.