Have you ever vacationed just to visit zoos?

SusScrofa

SusScrofa

Well-Known Member
How many of you have travelled far to another state/country just to visit a zoo or zoos?

Personally, I have never done a 'pure-zoo' trip, but since I love zoos any time I go on vacation to a different US state I plan to visit at least 1-2 zoos. On my visit to California, I did travel to San Diego pretty much for the zoos, but I was in Los Angeles before and I did studio tours, La Brea Tar Pits, hiking and Disneyland (plus Los Angeles Zoo). When I spent the summer at my family in New York, I visited New England and did many non-zoo related things like museums, mansions, historic sites and bar-hopping but I did add a few nearby zoos and aquariums as well, plus I would do zoo day-trips around New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania throughout my 6 weeks visiting. I live in Florida and will be travelling from Fort Lauderdale to Tampa in early December to do Busch Gardens, Zoo Tampa and other facilities thanks to an affordable promotional pass, but I'm not sure I would count that as a major trip because I live only 4 hours away and the roller coasters at Busch Gardens plus a boat cruise will be pretty major non-zoo events.

I have been thinking of travelling to US states like Ohio, Nebraska and Missouri strictly for the zoos. These would be short trips, but would require plane tickets and planning. But I hesitate, because I feel like I may be disappointed in just vacationing somewhere for zoos. No offense to those living in those states and I could be wrong since I'm not all that familiar with them, but outside of the zoological aspects I have no interest visiting those states and I don't feel there is anything outside of the zoos there that would interest me at all (weather, hiking, historical aspects, nightlife, etc doesn't strike me as great - no beaches either :p).

I haven't been overseas in many years and very few times anyways, and have never been to any zoos when I have. As much as I want to tour some of the great collections in the UK/Western Europe I do feel when I eventually visit I will only be partaking in the non-zoo aspects since I will be limited in time and there is simply too much historical and naturalistic experiences in these countries I want to do first. The same would apply to any other non-North American country I suppose.

Anyways, what is your experience with 'pure zoo' trips and would you recommend them?
 
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We didn't plan to, but when we went on holiday to Kent last September, I thought we'd go to maybe 2 that were nearby, and then the rest of the days just see the sights, and do nothing much, just chilling and relaxing. We had 6 days to venture out, and we visited 5 zoo's (of which one of them twice).
 
Yes all the time - I use my holiday time for photography trips and zoos play a huge role in those. Particularly this year I’ve visited lots of zoos for the first time using my holiday time. Definitely a lovely way to spend time and chill out. Certainly recommend it as a way to spend holiday time.
 
When I was younger my mother and I traveled to Germany and Japan for both zoos and non-zoo aspects of our destinations. We also had a road-trip this year in the Aegean and Marmara region to have a break, visit family and friends, and visit some zoos so I could record them for ZC.

This year I had my very first trip on my own that completely focused on zoos across Europe which stretched from Budapest all the way accross to Belgium. There were times when I wanted to go to museums such as the national museums of Hungary and Czechia but didn't because I was too scared to spend money at the time. But I was still able to enjoy the cities I stayed at by either wandering in the streets or using a 48 hour ticket on trams to enjoy the city scape.

This not to say that my plan does not have any flaws. I learned that the best way to make a zoo trip in Europe is to focus on specific regions rather than trips that span across the continent. Sadly doing such trips for each region frequenly is much more expensive for anyone outside of the European region so it is a tough choice to choose between doing the continent piece by piece or an what I did. Another problem with my European trip was my mode of transportation: trains. I love trains; I got to meet some interesting people in them, and I enjoy not having the accountability of being a car driver. But I had issues with trains arriving late and even had to walk a long walk back to my hostel because the train I was on wouldn't move due to a strike. Because of the fact that the arrivals are not always guaranteed to be on time it is impossible to have a zoo trip on the same day as a train ride which I go to my next "home base" (I had to ditch my Magdeburg Zoo trip). So renting a car could be a better choice despite it being a great expense. But I would still use trains again if I were to do a European trip. That and for this case the ends justify the means given that no one has to be hurt.

One nifty thing about most European regions (or so I know) is that in most regions, most towns are closer to each other than towns in the US so you can have shorter road trips for zoos which won't be as time consuming.

tl;dr: despite the problems I faced and only being an ameteur compared to most other users on this forum I still reccomend a "pure zoo trip"
 
Thank you all for the responses!

To my UK (or European) friends:
Have your zoo trips included overseas destinations (US, Australia) or was it limited to Western Europe?
If the latter, was a plane ticket purchased or was travel able to be done via metro system?
Was said travel costs expensive?

Pleistocene891 said:
I did a pure zoo trip to Omaha in 2021. But that's the only "pure zoo trip" I've done.
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Ah, I see you're from California. I'm on the opposite coast, but I feel your situation would be very comparable to me especially because I do eventually want to visit Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo. Some questions:

How long did you go for and did you do any other zoos in Nebraska besides OHDZ?
Did you end up doing anything else non-zoo related once you got there and if yes, did you end up enjoying those activities?
Did you feel it was worth the cost and effort of taking a plane just to see this zoo?
 
SusScrofa said:
my UK (or European) friends:
Have your zoo trips included overseas destinations (US, Australia) or was it limited to Western Europe?
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I visited America twice, 2014 (San Antonio) and 2016 (San Francisco).
For Disneyland both times was a main reason, and in 2016 also to meet up with a good friend.
Since over there, I asked to visit a zoo, as there's just different animals, and different environment and looks to it all.
 
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SusScrofa said:
Did you feel it was worth the cost and effort of taking a plane just to see this zoo?
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I haven’t looked into going on any big zoo-focused trips in my life yet, but I have been living in NYC without a car since the beginning of the year and I’ve had to deal with similar cost-benefit analyses to determine whether it is worthwhile to visit certain zoos in the area. I've already visited all the WCS institutions and a couple others, but there are many other zoos that are geographically nearby to me, but which I have not yet visited given the high costs and large travel-times of public transportation (as I am car-less).

For example, I live just 15 miles away from the Turtle Back Zoo in New Jersey. That is a simple 40-minute car ride. But I do not have a car, so it would take me an hour and a half to get to turtle back on a series of several buses using a combination of NY and NJ transit. Altogether, the transportation costs would be about $20, and that doesn’t include admission. There are also many people who combine Turtleback and Bergen County Zoo into a single day. But since I don’t have a car, it would be another two-hour ride on another series of buses with even more fares to get from Turtleback to Bergen. Then it would be another hour with several more buses and additional fares to get home after visiting both places. Is all of that effort worth it? For these lesser-known zoos, probably not.
 
No, I honestly think I'd get "zoo fatigue" if I spent an entire week seeing nothing else but zoos - my interests are a bit too diverse for that.

A couple of times, I've picked destinations on the basis of zoos I wanted to visit - this year, it was Berlin as I had yet to see the Tierpark, and a few years ago it was Cologne as I really wanted to see both Cologne Zoo with its enormous waterfowl collection and the river dolphin in Duisburg. But I only ended up going to these places because they also had other sights I wanted to see - for example the cathedral in Cologne and the museums on the Museum Island in Berlin. I wouldn't visit a place if it had no other big-name attractions than zoos within close reach.

When I visit zoos on a day trip here in Denmark, I also prefer to combine the visit with a nearby museum or a hike on a nearby marked trail.
 
My trips are well known for including 50 zoos (2012), 65 zoos (2014), 81 zoos (2015) or even 95 zoos (2019) in a single summer...insanity to most people. I cut back this summer with only 24 Scandinavian zoos. ;) All of that is because I want to visit as many zoos as possible, I have been researching zoos all my life, and it's one of my passions along with soccer and movies. Ironically, probably 95% of all the zookeepers I've ever met have visited a dozen zoos or less. So many people who work in zoos are amazing at their jobs and know a ton about animals, but have little desire to spend a lot of money touring zoos all over the globe.

However, when my wife and I traveled together in the early days of our marriage, we often had zoos and aquariums included but not always as the main focus. We'd see national parks, famous monuments and many other attractions along the route. Now she stays home with the 4 kids while I see zoo after zoo on my solo vacations. In return, she goes away more than I do to get a break with her sister in Calgary, Alberta.
 
ZooElephantsMan said:
I haven’t looked into going on any big zoo-focused trips in my life yet, but I have been living in NYC without a car since the beginning of the year and I’ve had to deal with similar cost-benefit analyses to determine whether it is worthwhile to visit certain zoos in the area. I've already visited all the WCS institutions and a couple others, but there are many other zoos that are geographically nearby to me, but which I have not yet visited given the high costs and large travel-times of public transportation (as I am car-less).

For example, I live just 15 miles away from the Turtle Back Zoo in New Jersey. That is a simple 40-minute car ride. But I do not have a car, so it would take me an hour and a half to get to turtle back on a series of several buses using a combination of NY and NJ transit. Altogether, the transportation costs would be about $20, and that doesn’t include admission. There are also many people who combine Turtleback and Bergen County Zoo into a single day. But since I don’t have a car, it would be another two-hour ride on another series of buses with even more fares to get from Turtleback to Bergen. Then it would be another hour with several more buses and additional fares to get home after visiting both places. Is all of that effort worth it? For these lesser-known zoos, probably not.
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You're lucky that New York City has such a good public transportation system to get to all the zoological institutes (except Queens and the non-WCS Staten Island). Most cities don't have such luxury and it would be difficult to reach their zoos without a car, although to be fair Uber/Lyft usually is cheaper out of NYC. Are you able to rent a car? That could be an option, renting out a car for a few days and spending the nights in New Jersey seeing the zoos and maybe some attractions (Jersey Shore, Atlantic City, Pine Barrens - when its warmer, of course). With traffic and lack of parking, I definitely hated driving in NYC and avoided it like the plague.

Hvedekorn said:
No, I honestly think I'd get "zoo fatigue" if I spent an entire week seeing nothing else but zoos - my interests are a bit too diverse for that.

A couple of times, I've picked destinations on the basis of zoos I wanted to visit - this year, it was Berlin as I had yet to see the Tierpark, and a few years ago it was Cologne as I really wanted to see both Cologne Zoo with its enormous waterfowl collection and the river dolphin in Duisburg. But I only ended up going to these places because they also had other sights I wanted to see - for example the cathedral in Cologne and the museums on the Museum Island in Berlin. I wouldn't visit a place if it had no other big-name attractions than zoos within close reach.

When I visit zoos on a day trip here in Denmark, I also prefer to combine the visit with a nearby museum or a hike on a nearby marked trail.
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I feel like I might also have that issue. When I went to Boston this summer for 4-5 days I ended up doing 3 zoological facilities (Franklin Park, Stone, and Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut). I was planning on visiting a local sanctuary right next to my hotel (Blue Hills Trailside Museum) but I just couldn't get into the spirit. None of those facilities were "full-day" zoos either. I'm not sure it was "zoo-fatigue" as opposed to just plain fatigue because me and my friend packed in so much during that trip in a short amount of time.
 
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*All* of my holidays are purely zoo focused for a very long time now, they are my form of relaxation I suppose:D

The recent past has gone as such:
October 2022: Scotland - 3 days, 6 zoos
August 2022: California - 14 days, 20 zoos
April 2022: Malta - 6 days, 6 ‘zoos’
December 2021: Kings Lynn - 4 days, 7 zoos
October 2021: Wales - 7 days, 15 zoos
August 2021: Ireland / Northern Ireland - 10 days, 19 zoos
March 2021: Colchester - 5 days, 11 zoos

In prior trips to these I can’t remember how many days I stayed on holiday for, but I can remember which zoos I visited.
 
After graduating from high school, my last summer vacation before going to college was a road trip across Ohio to visit the “big 4” zoos (Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Toledo)+Detroit because why not.
This added several species to my life list: Aardwolf, Potto, Bamboo Lemur, Tamandua, Reindeer, Kiwi, Feathertail Glider, Onager, Tuatara, Sea Krait, and Flashlight Fish (probably more).
I’ve considered doing this with other zoo-heavy states, like Tennessee or possibly Texas.
 
snowleopard said:
My trips are well known for including 50 zoos (2012), 65 zoos (2014), 81 zoos (2015) or even 95 zoos (2019) in a single summer...insanity to most people. I cut back this summer with only 24 Scandinavian zoos. ;) All of that is because I want to visit as many zoos as possible, I have been researching zoos all my life, and it's one of my passions along with soccer and movies. Ironically, probably 95% of all the zookeepers I've ever met have visited a dozen zoos or less. So many people who work in zoos are amazing at their jobs and know a ton about animals, but have little desire to spend a lot of money touring zoos all over the globe.

However, when my wife and I traveled together in the early days of our marriage, we often had zoos and aquariums included but not always as the main focus. We'd see national parks, famous monuments and many other attractions along the route. Now she stays home with the 4 kids while I see zoo after zoo on my solo vacations. In return, she goes away more than I do to get a break with her sister in Calgary, Alberta.
Click to expand...

pangolin12 said:
*All* of my holidays are purely zoo focused for a very long time now, they are my form of relaxation I suppose:D

The recent past has gone as such:
October 2022: Scotland - 3 days, 6 zoos
August 2022: California - 14 days, 20 zoos
April 2022: Malta - 6 days, 6 ‘zoos’
December 2021: Kings Lynn - 4 days, 7 zoos
October 2021: Wales - 7 days, 15 zoos
August 2021: Ireland / Northern Ireland - 10 days, 19 zoos
March 2021: Colchester - 5 days, 11 zoos

In prior trips to these I can’t remember how many days I stayed on holiday for, but I can remember which zoos I visited.
Click to expand...

Very impressive tallies! In the past 18 months I've travelled and pursued my zoo passion more than I ever have in my life and I've never came close to visiting that amount of zoos. Only if I count nature centers, small rehab sanctuaries or non-traditional places like science centers w/ some animals would I come close to such numbers. And that's after more than a year travelling compared to one summer, I'm such an amateur :D.

The biggest question I have is how you guys can handle the long hours of driving?? Being on the road so long takes a huge toll on me regardless if its for zoo or non-zoo activities. I have issues sitting for more than 2 hours at a time and when I finally arrive at a destination after more than 3-4 hours of driving I often need to rest at a hotel for the remainder of the day. I'm guessing doing so many zoos in a short time is going to require a very heavy amount of daily driving. Do you have a partner to split the driving duties?

Corangurilla said:
After graduating from high school, my last summer vacation before going to college was a road trip across Ohio to visit the “big 4” zoos (Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Toledo)+Detroit because why not.
This added several species to my life list: Aardwolf, Potto, Bamboo Lemur, Tamandua, Reindeer, Kiwi, Feathertail Glider, Onager, Tuatara, Sea Krait, and Flashlight Fish (probably more).
I’ve considered doing this with other zoo-heavy states, like Tennessee or possibly Texas.
Click to expand...

Hey @Corangurilla, how did you enjoy the trip? How many days was the road trip for? Was there other enjoyable non-zoo related things in Ohio that you did on your trip that you might recommend?
 
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snowleopard said:
Ironically, probably 95% of all the zookeepers I've ever met have visited a dozen zoos or less. So many people who work in zoos are amazing at their jobs and know a ton about animals, but have little desire to spend a lot of money touring zoos all over the globe.
Click to expand...

Two points here - one, active zookeepers have animals to care for 365 days a year. There is no down season, no offtime to go traveling. Most of them are very much engaged and satisfied with their "own" animals. It's a demanding job and not all of them are interested in traveling. There are some that do though, and there's a few on here at that.
Second point being that most keepers don't make enough to travel much, it's a commonly quoted quip in the industry that "people do it for the animals not the money."

Anyways more on track, I have done a couple vacations mainly for zoos. I tend to throw in a little wildlife watching and sometimes another notable attraction, but location is usually decided by what facilities are around.
 
SusScrofa said:
Hey @Corangurilla, how did you enjoy the trip? How many days was the road trip for? Was there other enjoyable non-zoo related things in Ohio that you did on your trip that you might recommend?
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Oh, I loved it! Even my mom says it was the greatest vacation she’d even been on!
The whole trip took about a week to complete. I didn’t really do any non-zoo things in Ohio, but I did see some friends/family in Michigan. Sorry :oops:.
 
I've done three two/three day trips with the main objective to visit zoos:

June 2021 - Cleveland MetroParks Zoo and the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium
March 2022 - Nashville Zoo and Louisville Zoo
November 2022 - Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium and National Aviary (threw in a visit to Carnegie Mellon University just to get an excused absence from school ;)).
 
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