Help me plan a Dec 26–Jan 1 road trip (DRIVING ONLY) with BOTH octopus + elephant encounters

[MeganTheeStallion]

Hi everyone! I’m planning a winter road trip for December 26, 2025 to January 1, 2026, starting from Forestville, NY, and I’m hoping to get ideas from people who know good animal encounter destinations.


We are driving only (no flights), but we’re willing to go any distance in the U.S. as long as it can be done by car.


The main goal of this trip is to do BOTH:


An octopus encounter

— behind-the-scenes, feeding, enrichment, touch tank session (if species-appropriate), or a private tour


An elephant encounter

— feeding, bathing (if weather allows), training demo, sanctuary encounter, or behind-the-scenes zoo program


These don’t have to be in the same city — anywhere we can realistically drive to within that week is fine.


What I’m hoping the community can help with:

1. Where in the U.S. can you do both octopus and elephant encounters on a road-trip?
2. Any zoos/sanctuaries offering elephant encounters in late December?
3. Aquariums that allow GPO or cephalopod encounters, feedings, or behind-the-scenes tours?
4. Two-city combos that would work well (ex: one place for elephants, drive a few hours to another for octopus)
5. Holiday week closures or weather issues we should know about

We’re totally flexible on distance and route — East Coast, South, Midwest, Southwest, West Coast — anything drivable is fair game.


If you wanted to meet BOTH an elephant and an octopus in the same week, where would you go?


Thanks for any ideas!

 

[Persephone]

Hi everyone! I’m planning a winter road trip for December 26, 2025 to January 1, 2026, starting from Forestville, NY, and I’m hoping to get ideas from people who know good animal encounter destinations.


We are driving only (no flights), but we’re willing to go any distance in the U.S. as long as it can be done by car.


The main goal of this trip is to do BOTH:


An octopus encounter

— behind-the-scenes, feeding, enrichment, touch tank session (if species-appropriate), or a private tour


An elephant encounter

— feeding, bathing (if weather allows), training demo, sanctuary encounter, or behind-the-scenes zoo program


These don’t have to be in the same city — anywhere we can realistically drive to within that week is fine.


What I’m hoping the community can help with:

1. Where in the U.S. can you do both octopus and elephant encounters on a road-trip?
2. Any zoos/sanctuaries offering elephant encounters in late December?
3. Aquariums that allow GPO or cephalopod encounters, feedings, or behind-the-scenes tours?
4. Two-city combos that would work well (ex: one place for elephants, drive a few hours to another for octopus)
5. Holiday week closures or weather issues we should know about

We’re totally flexible on distance and route — East Coast, South, Midwest, Southwest, West Coast — anything drivable is fair game.


If you wanted to meet BOTH an elephant and an octopus in the same week, where would you go?


Thanks for any ideas!

Toledo has both. Seems to have elephant dates in late December. It’ll cost you, though. Elephant encounter is probably easier to find than octopus if you don’t want to / can’t do them at the same zoo. I’m not checking every zoo in the region’s website to see if they have encounters, but in the general area of Toledo you can find elephants at Milwaukee, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Pittsburgh.

 

[TheOceanicHippo]

Hi everyone! I’m planning a winter road trip for December 26, 2025 to January 1, 2026, starting from Forestville, NY, and I’m hoping to get ideas from people who know good animal encounter destinations.


We are driving only (no flights), but we’re willing to go any distance in the U.S. as long as it can be done by car.


The main goal of this trip is to do BOTH:


An octopus encounter

— behind-the-scenes, feeding, enrichment, touch tank session (if species-appropriate), or a private tour


An elephant encounter

— feeding, bathing (if weather allows), training demo, sanctuary encounter, or behind-the-scenes zoo program


These don’t have to be in the same city — anywhere we can realistically drive to within that week is fine.


What I’m hoping the community can help with:

1. Where in the U.S. can you do both octopus and elephant encounters on a road-trip?
2. Any zoos/sanctuaries offering elephant encounters in late December?
3. Aquariums that allow GPO or cephalopod encounters, feedings, or behind-the-scenes tours?
4. Two-city combos that would work well (ex: one place for elephants, drive a few hours to another for octopus)
5. Holiday week closures or weather issues we should know about

We’re totally flexible on distance and route — East Coast, South, Midwest, Southwest, West Coast — anything drivable is fair game.


If you wanted to meet BOTH an elephant and an octopus in the same week, where would you go?


Thanks for any ideas!

Hi everyone! I’m planning a winter road trip for December 26, 2025 to January 1, 2026, starting from Forestville, NY, and I’m hoping to get ideas from people who know good animal encounter destinations.


We are driving only (no flights), but we’re willing to go any distance in the U.S. as long as it can be done by car.


The main goal of this trip is to do BOTH:


An octopus encounter

— behind-the-scenes, feeding, enrichment, touch tank session (if species-appropriate), or a private tour


An elephant encounter

— feeding, bathing (if weather allows), training demo, sanctuary encounter, or behind-the-scenes zoo program


These don’t have to be in the same city — anywhere we can realistically drive to within that week is fine.


What I’m hoping the community can help with:

1. Where in the U.S. can you do both octopus and elephant encounters on a road-trip?
2. Any zoos/sanctuaries offering elephant encounters in late December?
3. Aquariums that allow GPO or cephalopod encounters, feedings, or behind-the-scenes tours?
4. Two-city combos that would work well (ex: one place for elephants, drive a few hours to another for octopus)
5. Holiday week closures or weather issues we should know about

We’re totally flexible on distance and route — East Coast, South, Midwest, Southwest, West Coast — anything drivable is fair game.


If you wanted to meet BOTH an elephant and an octopus in the same week, where would you go?


Thanks for any ideas!

Toledo has an Octopus Encounter where I believe you can touch them, but it is $350 but that includes up to four people. I know Toledo also has an Elephant Encounter but I think it is watching only. Indianapolis Zoo is only three hours away and offers an Elephant Bath Experience where you can touch and give an elephant a bath. Indianapolis also has the more affordable elephant experience at $75 a person considering some zoos charge over $200 a person.

 

[EagleScout610]

Cleveland has free elephant care demonstrations in the winter. They also have an octopus in the Primate, Cat, and Aquatics building.

 

[TheOceanicHippo]

Toledo has an Octopus Encounter where I believe you can touch them, but it is $350 but that includes up to four people. I know Toledo also has an Elephant Encounter but I think it is watching only. Indianapolis Zoo is only three hours away and offers an Elephant Bath Experience where you can touch and give an elephant a bath. Indianapolis also has the more affordable elephant experience at $75 a person considering some zoos charge over $200 a person.

Adding onto myself I just found that the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium in Iowa also offers a octopus encounter where you get to touch them!