I had a great time over my 2 day visit to San Diego Zoo back in May – it really is a great zoo and I’d highly recommend it to anyone visiting the area already. San Diego Zoo pops up on most ‘top 10 zoos’ lists for the US, having been to several of the zoos that commonly pop up on these lists, I would firmly put San Diego Zoo at the number 1 spot! They have a huge site, so many animals on offer, well thought out themes and spaces, amazing volunteers and staff, and are really highlighting the conservation work they are undertaking. They tick all the boxes of what zoos should be doing, I was really so impressed and was already excited the plan a return trip when I was still there!
Getting there: the zoo is located within Balboa Park, just a stones throw from where I stayed in downtown San Diego. I took the bus both there and back, there were 2 bus options from where I was and it cost $2.50 for a single journey and for me this only lasted 10-15 minutes. It was so quick and affordable, and easy to do (enter at the front door and just tap a contactless card on the reader, then pull the cord for the bell when you want off and get off at the back) – and the buses were pretty frequent. I definitely saved some money on this rather than taking Ubers. From the bus stop it was just a short 5-10 minute walk up from the road to the entrance to the zoo.
Zoo tickets: there are a range of tickets on offer, for me the 2 day ticket worked best. I paid $130 for this (around £97) – which is a lot of money, and more than I have paid for my various annual passes to European zoos, but overall I’d say it was worth it. A 1 day ticket is $78, however there are some value days where tickets have a reduced cost. The 2 day ticket can be 2 days at San Diego Zoo, but could also be 1 zoo day and 1 day at the San Diego Safari Park, or 2 days at the Safari Park, I think this is a good option.
On my visit the zoo was open from 9AM on both days, and until 6PM on the Friday and 4PM on the Saturday because there was a special event on. Both days were very popular and while it was a little busier on the Saturday, it wasn’t much more than on the Friday. I didn’t mind the early closing on the Saturday either, by this time the pandas are really winding down, as were many of the other animals, so it gave me an opportunity to enjoy a little of the sites of San Diego without needing to be out too late! Included in your entrance ticket is access to a few fun activities that you can do at the zoo – namely the Skyfari, which is like a cable car across the zoo (I didn’t do this one – I’m afraid of heights!), and a double decker bus tour which is around 30 minutes and covers a large section of the zoo with live narration from the driver. I went on the bus tour on the Saturday and this was a fantastic experience that I would highly recommend. You can choose to sit upstairs or downstairs, with the choice made in the line for the bus loading, I opted for downstairs which had a shorter line, I think it would be good to try both if time allowed. The driver was incredibly knowledgable about the animals on the route and about conservation and the zoo history. For this to be included in ticket cost is amazing as many zoos would definitely include this as an extra. And the buses all had different animals on them, there was indeed a panda bus!
The zoo is split into 9 themed areas along with the main entrance hub where there are mostly shops, eateries and other amenities. I have to admit, I completely missed the Reptile Walk area! I just didn’t see it highlighted when I was nearby and forgot to check the map before leaving, so I don’t have any photos from there or can comment on what it was like – but hey, something new for a future visit! It’s a huge zoo and I definitely got all my steps in across these two days, plus it’s quite hilly in places.
Wildlife Explorers Basecamp
The Wildlife Explorers Basecamp area of the zoo is one I didn’t spend a lot of time in, mostly because I ran out of time and it’s not so much on the path to or from the pandas. It also seemed more aimed at young children with lots of activities for them to take part in and playgrounds etc. Here I did check out the small bird walkthrough habitat and saw some very nice small birds very close up, and also walked through the ‘spineless marvels’ space seeing a range of invertebrates. I also enjoyed seeing the prairie dogs in this area, but I’m sad I missed seeing the raccoons as I really like raccoons!
Lost Forest
The Lost Forest is one of the largest sections of the zoo, with winding paths at different levels, I’m quite sure I’ll have missed something along the way! Here there are a wide range of primates and monkeys (large and small), tigers, hippos, tapirs, otters and a range of birds as well. Because I took this route to get to the pandas a few times, I ended up seeing some of the animals here quite a lot, particularly the orangutans who very much enjoyed their outdoor space with lots of fun climbing options that they made good use of. I also enjoyed the hippos here at the far side of the area, there were 3 who lived in a huge pool with a great underwater viewing section, it was always quite busy here but I managed to get in to see them too. I also managed to see one of the tigers making good use of their home – it was a huge hillside space with different levels, I wasn’t able to get a very good photo of the space as a whole but did get one of the tiger. Having seen a lot of different tiger homes across the world, this one definitely stands out as a memorable one, I think it would be fantastic to see little cubs exploring this space too!
Asian Passage
With the Asian Passage being home to the pandas, I spent a large proportion of my time in this area! However I didn’t get as many photos of all the bears as I would have liked – the Sun Bear Forest section looked lovely, but no matter how hard I looked I didn’t manage to glimpse an actual sun bear! The red pandas also live in the Panda Ridge section of the area, so I spotted them a few times, however with the hot weather they stuck to the leafy tree branches which made it quite tricky to get clear photos of them. I really like the cat section just next door to the pandas, here were both amur and snow leopards, I didn’t get much look at the snow leopards, I suspect because of the warm weather and it was similar to when I was at Central Park Zoo last year trying to spot the snow leopard, however the amur leopards were quite active, especially on the mornings when I went after checking out the pandas. The overhead walkway for them to cross between their spaces was really cool and the animals did seem to like using it and even settled there for a nap too!
Northern Frontier
The Northern Frontier area was also quite close to the pandas, so I ended up spending time here too – but also the polar bears are one of my sisters favourite animals, so I always try to get some photos of them for her when I can. I really liked the Polar Bear Plunge section here, there was an indoor underwater viewing section which was cool and had a great view with different levels so plenty of space for people. In here was also a lot of education which I really liked the design of as well. Then there was an outdoor viewing section, this was through glass but above the water level, and windows were at both land and water sections across the very large yard space. I got pretty great views of both polar bears through the glass, but if you took the bus tour you would also be able to spot the polar bears barrier-free if the bears were on that side of their yard at the time the bus was going past. I was sad I didn’t get to see the lynx as that’s a species’ that I’ve not been able to see a lot of in zoos. I did get lucky and see the mountain lions, which are a species we don’t have widely spread in the zoos that I’ve been to here in Europe – just didn’t get a good picture because these guys were great at hiding!
Elephant Odyssey
The Elephant Odyssey area, which does have other animals alongside elephants, is another of the larger sections of the zoo – however the elephants do have the majority of the space, I really liked the design of the yards and the winding nature alongside the paths, then with the path sloping down underneath and coming out at the other side. Lots of great enrichment and design details along the way, and for sure this is a memorable elephant house. I very much enjoyed seeing the capybaras too, I liked them together with the tapirs, they seemed to be very happy together. And I was pleased to also see camels, another species I haven’t really seen very often and these guys were pretty cute^ What I also liked was the exhibit on the history of species living in California with a bit about the La Brea tar pits, which I then went past later in my trip so I could tie things together.
Africa Rocks
The Africa Rocks area was one that I only had time to walk through once, so I definitely didn’t explore as much would be needed to see everything. There were a number of walkthrough aviaries here as well which I didn’t go into. There were lots of lemurs in this section as well, but I struggled to get photos through the fencing. The penguins at the end of the trail close to the pandas were very nice and I liked their pool, I just somehow missed taking any photos of them! I believe there was a good underwater viewing section of the penguins too.
Outback
The Outback area is very much named for the Australian theming and the bulk of the area is home to the large group of koalas that live here. All of the koalas that I saw were living outside, which is nice to see as mostly in Europe I’ve only seen koalas indoors as it’s mostly not good enough weather for them! This reminded me a bit of a more spaced out version of the koala area at Chimelong Safari Park, but here the separate spaces looked quite seamless so it appeared as one area rather than separate yards which I really liked. And there was even a young one who was still clinging on to mum and was super cute^
Urban Jungle
And the final section is the Urban Jungle where I ended up on both afternoons enjoying watching the very lovely giraffe family with their two little ones, so sweet! In this area I also saw the cheetah being particularly active and up close at the fence line – this was a nice long yard and he was very keen to see what was going on across the path. It was also very nice to see porcupine’s here too, I love these little guys and they were sitting very nicely by the water lapping it up.
