The gate opens at nine. Know which ticket to hold.
Which zoo ticket walks you past the queue, which elephant camp stopped the riding years ago, how long a panda base really takes with a five-year-old in tow. Reviews of the visits you can book, from Ubud to Rovaniemi.
Four animal parks worth building a trip around.
The visits people cross oceans for, what each one costs at the gate, and how much of the day to hand over.
01The elephant dayChiang Mai: Elephant Sanctuary, Waterfall & Bamboo RaftingBathing, feeding and a lot of mud in the hills above Chiang Mai. No riding, no circus, and the whole day gone before you notice.
02The city zooAmsterdam: ARTIS Amsterdam Royal Zoo Entry TicketARTIS sits inside Amsterdam, ten minutes from the canal ring. Entry is timed, and the old aquarium building is the part nobody expects.
03The harbour zooSydney: Taronga Zoo TicketsTaronga looks straight back at the Opera House across the water. Ferry up from Circular Quay, chairlift down through the giraffes.
04The panda stopMadrid: Zoo Aquarium Madrid TicketPandas, dolphins and a full aquarium on one Madrid ticket. Go at opening; by early afternoon the bears are asleep.
Australia is where you get to hold the koala, not just photograph it.
The marsupials live nowhere else, and the parks run from a headland in Sydney Harbour to open range country west of Brisbane. Three kinds of Australian animal day, and what each one costs before you add the ferry.
Zoo tickets, bought before you are standing in the queue.
Nearly every big-city zoo now sells a timed slot, and the paper queue at the turnstile is the one avoidable part of the day. What each ticket costs, what it lets you skip, and which ones fold in the aquarium next door.
The elephant camp that bathes them, not the one that rides them.
Riding, chains, cub petting and costumed shows are all still sold as wildlife experiences. The parks worth the money publish feeding times instead of show times, keep the animals off the visitors, and let you leave without a staged photograph. The word sanctuary is not a guarantee, so read what actually happens there before the deposit goes down.
The animal parks more travellers book than any other.
Every park we have reviewed →The most popular visits on the site, and what each one is actually like once you are through the turnstile.
1
Chiang Mai: Elephant Sanctuary, Waterfall & Bamboo Rafting
Join PON Elephant Thailand for a nine-hour day outside Chiang Mai. Feed and bathe rescued elephants, walk with them through forest, swim at Mae Wang Waterfalls, eat a Thai lunch, and raft the river. Guides such as Nop, Paul, Yaya, and Sunny add useful elephant facts and help with photos.
From · $60
Read our review →
2
Ubud: Monkey Forest, Jungle Swing, Rice Terrace, and Water Temple
from $31
3
Chiang Mai: Elephant Sanctuary & Waterfall Group Tour
from $50
4
Amsterdam: ARTIS Amsterdam Royal Zoo Entry Ticket
from $35
5
Ubud: Waterfall, Rice Terraces & Monkey Forest Private Tour
from $23
6
Dubai: Aquarium and Underwater Zoo Experience
from $56
7
Chiang Mai: Elephant Sanctuary Feeding Program Half-Day Tour
from $27
8
San Diego Zoo 1-Day Pass: Any Day Ticket
from $78
Thailand’s elephant camps, sorted by what they ask of the elephant.
Chiang Mai has dozens within an hour of the old city and Phuket a handful along the south coast. The good ones feed, bathe and walk, nothing more. Budget the whole day: the minibus at each end is longer than the time in the mud.
Every elephant sanctuary →What a day with the animals actually costs.
Every visit on the site grouped by price. Plain gate entry comes in under a restaurant lunch; the sanctuary days with pickup, food and a keeper are where the money goes.
City zoo entry, bird parks, aviaries, and the combo tickets that throw in the aquarium.
Full-day sanctuary visits with hotel pickup, a feeding programme and lunch included.
Private keeper mornings, small-group elephant care, and multi-park days with a driver.
Three animals you have to pick the right country for.
Any decent zoo holds lions. Giant pandas, a temple forest full of macaques and a koala you are legally allowed to touch each happen in exactly one place on earth.
Seeing the Giant Pandas
A giant panda is awake and eating for about four hours out of twenty-four, and nearly all of them fall before ten in the morning. The Sichuan breeding bases open at half past seven for exactly that reason, and Beijing Zoo keeps a pair in the middle of the city for anyone not going west. Whichever you pick, the first ticket of the day is the one that shows you a panda actually doing something; by lunchtime they are heaps in the crooks of trees.
- 1Beijing: The Beijing Zoo Entry Ticket with Pandas★★★★★★★★★★ 4.1 · 368 reviews
- 2Visiting Dujiangyan Yaan Wolong Panda Base Optional Volunteering★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 105 reviews
- 3Private Zhujiajiao Water Town Tour with Shanghai Zoo and Panda★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 60 reviews
The Sacred Monkey Forest
Three moss-covered temples sit in a banyan ravine in the middle of Ubud, and roughly twelve hundred long-tailed macaques live around them. They are wild, they are fast, and they have learned that sunglasses, water bottles and loose daypacks are worth grabbing. Hands empty, nothing loose on your head, no eye contact with the big males sitting on the path, and it is an hour you will talk about for years.
- 1Ubud: Monkey Forest, Jungle Swing, Rice Terrace, and Water Temple★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 7,160 reviews
- 2Ubud: Waterfall, Rice Terraces & Monkey Forest Private Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 4,894 reviews
- 3Ubud: Full-Day Rice Terrace, Monkey Forest & Waterfall★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,634 reviews
Holding a Koala
Queensland is the only Australian state that still lets a visitor hold a koala, and even there each animal works a short shift with rostered days off. Book the first slot of the morning, because the sanctuaries cap the numbers and the queue for that photograph is most of why the room exists. Everywhere else in the country you stand beside the tree and the koala stays in it.
- 1Brisbane River Cruise with entry to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,522 reviews
- 2Brisbane River Cruise and Koala Sanctuary Visit★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,397 reviews
- 3Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary Day Pass★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 512 reviews
Four animal visits that will not wait for you to land.
Most zoos will happily sell you a ticket at the gate. These four run on capped feeding sessions, a shuttle timetable and a bear that goes back to sleep at ten.
- 01Chiang Mai: Elephant Sanctuary Feeding Program Half-Day TourThe feeding sessions take a fixed number of people and the morning one goes first. Turn up on spec and you are watching from the fence.
- 02San Diego Zoo 1-Day Pass: Any Day TicketA hundred acres, and the gate queue at opening is the longest of the day. A dated ticket puts you straight through it.
- 03Visiting Dujiangyan Yaan Wolong Panda Base Optional VolunteeringPandas are awake and eating for a couple of hours after the gates open and asleep by mid-morning. An afternoon ticket buys you a black-and-white heap in a tree.
- 04Ubud: Monkey Forest, Jungle Swing, Rice Terrace, and Water TempleThe forest fills from mid-morning and the macaques get bolder as the crowd grows. The early ticket is the calm one.
Six countries carry most of the animal parks worth flying for.
Balinese monkey forests, Thai elephant camps, Australian marsupials, big American city zoos, the Sichuan panda bases, and a reindeer farm inside the Arctic Circle.
By country
How much of the day an animal park really takes.
Gate entry
Combo ticket
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