San Diego Wild Animal Park

None of us had ever been to the San Diego Wild Animal Park, partially since it is outside of San Diego in Escondido, so we were quite excited to check it out. Here's Sarah at the welcome sign to the park.

What I love about this park is that it gives the animals HUGE space to roam around- it definitely has a more natural feel to it.

What we loved about the park was that they provided a map with a recommended trail so that you can maximize the number of animals that you see since the park is so much bigger. I loved this tree house type walkway around the ponds.

They also have a balloon ride that you have to pay extra for so we didn't do it- also, all it does is go up and down. If I'm going to pay to go on a balloon ride, I definitely want it to go somewhere.

Included in our admission was a ride on the Conservation Carousel- but William refused to ride it so I at least got a good photo of me :-)

They also had a safari tram that took you into areas of the park not accessible by walking and where we saw the best part of the zoo- the animals. We first saw the cheetas- who spend most of their time resting to store up their energy for very fast but brief sprints

Rhinos

And giraffes

I loved that they used an old beat up SUV as a bed for this lion

The female lions weren't really fans of the car and so they were on the other side of the enclosure

They had so many elephants- I particularly love the photo of the mama and the baby- precious.

How William measures up to the span of the gorilla

and to California condors

His span is almost long enough with both. We saw some of these California condors and they didn't seem that big. And a bald eagle

They also had a lot of other beautiful birds- Macaws (rainbow and blue) and and some orange bird


And look at the amazing coloration of this hornbill

They also had meerkats- I haven't seen the tv show, Meerkat Manor, so I guess I didn't fully appreciate them, but they are cute

I have never seen an armadillo close up- I was surprised at how it literally fits into a round ball.

I had heard of all of these animals before even if I had never seen them in person before. However, we attended this show at the park where I learned about all kinds of animals that I never knew existed. Like the African caracal- it has these curly black tufts of hair over their ears.

And boy can they jump- and he did this several times for us.

They also had another animal that could jump really high and has a beautiful spotted coat so it is endangered- its called the serval cat which is primarily found in Africa.

I really enjoyed the Wild Animal Park- it was definitely gave the animals the most space and natural type habitat. But, if you only have a short time and limited funds, William and I would recommend that you choose the San Diego Zoo as you can see a wider variety of animals.