- Everything you need to know
to visit the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.
In this video, I'm gonna tell you how to get in,
how to get around, what to eat, what to see,
and of course, what to do.
All right, let's go.
The first thing to know
is just a little bit more information about the Safari Park.
It is the San Diego Zoo's sister park located about 35 miles
to the northeast of the San Diego Zoo in Escondido.
This park is about 20 times the size of the San Diego Zoo.
It is less about seeing animals in cages
or behind fences, and seeing animals out in the safari
in large expanses and doing safari activities
like actually going out into that wide expanse
or perhaps even taking balloons like you see that behind me.
Now, how long do you wanna spend here?
At least four hours I would say.
This place is pretty big.
They really made this area seem quite jungley.
It's even got a waterfall.
And if you've been here before
you might know this park as another name.
It used to be called the Wild Animal Park.
It's now the San Diego Zoo Safari Park
and it's home to the world's largest collection
of hooved animals.
Hm.
(upbeat music)
Oh, and if you come here during the winter holidays
then they have a pretty neat holiday light experience,
and the Safari Park is open late in December too.
The second thing to know is about tickets,
and adult tickets for one day
into the Safari Park are $67, two days, $110.
You can get a three-day ticket for a little bit more
that also includes SeaWorld.
And by the way, the tickets here
they're the same tickets for the San Diego Zoo.
So for the two-day ticket, you can visit the Safari Park
and the San Diego Zoo in Balboa Park.
Now, although the tickets are $67,
well you can easily end up spending a lot more here
'cause all the safari experiences cost more.
We spent $25 extra per person
to skip the line for the Africa Tram
you're gonna see in a little bit.
So $67 is the base price,
and if you really want to experience the animals up close,
feed them, you know, you could be looking
at a couple of hundred dollars per person
for a full day in here.
By the way, this spot that I'm standing,
this is in the Lion Camp.
They've got six African lions here.
They are sleeping out in the background
because lions sleep up to 20 hours a day.
Sounds pretty nice.
The third thing to know
is about getting into the safari park.
You're gonna want to drive to get here
'cause there are really
no good public transportation options.
Parking, $15 in a really big parking lot.
Take a picture of where you park 'cause it's really big.
If it's a busy day and you wanna park up front,
another $18 for preferred parking.
Now it is about 35 miles from Downtown San Diego.
So allocate 30 to 60 minutes if there's traffic
if you're coming from Downtown San Diego.
If you're coming from points north
like Orange County and Los Angeles,
it's gonna take you the same time to get here
as it is to the San Diego Zoo in Balbo Park
because, well, the Safari Park is really quite inland
down the 78 Highway in Escondido,
and the last five or six miles of it
are kind of a two-lane country road.
Fine in the day, but if you don't like windy roads at night,
well then maybe leave before the sun goes down.
The fourth thing to know
is about getting around the Safari Park.
And it's a big park.
You're gonna be doing a lot of walking.
It's pretty stroller friendly, wheelchair friendly.
But what you're really here for
is to get around with the Africa Tram.
This is the tram that'll take you
into the Africa exhibition where the wild animals are.
They're all wild here,
but these are where the open exhibit animals are.
This is included with your admission ticket
into the Safari Park.
But the lines were pretty long the day we were here.
They were 60 minutes.
And so if you wanna skip the line,
$25 a person and you can skip the line.
Riding the Africa Tram, you'll see antelope,
giraffes, buffalo, cranes, rhinoceros, and even more.
This is why you come.
So you should probably plan to do this
right first thing as you come.
There's also a lot of other safari attractions here.
There's a balloon you can take
if you want to get a bird's eye view.
$20 a person will get you up in the balloon.
There's a zip line you can take, 2/3 of a mile zip line.
Takes about an hour to do the whole zip line experience
'cause they have you practice and then you do it for real.
That one is about $90.
And you can also take smaller safari expeditions
out in the Africa Adventure.
You can go on golf carts, you can go on safari trucks.
But those are gonna cost you more too.
Now the Safari Park is pretty confusing to navigate,
particularly if you've got the map upside down.
They got great paper maps.
You'll want to pick these up.
They've also got a really good mobile app
that you can like click on these things
and you can get walking directions
from where you are to go there.
And there's also tons of friendly volunteers wearing red.
When in doubt, just ask them to help you find
where you're trying to go.
And the little ones in the family
will enjoy getting around on the Conservation Carousel.
$6 all day rides.
Princess, what are you riding on?
- A horsey.
- (laughs) The chubby unicorn right here.
And the fifth thing to know is about food.
And there are lots of food options here in the Safari Park.
Burgers, fries, popcorn, that sort of thing.
Expect to pay about $20 for a meal here.
You can also bring your own food and drink in,
including lollipops.
And by the way, thank you to the couple
that gave us this lollipop for our princess right here.
She really wanted a lollipop, they had some,
and now she is so happy that she is ready for a nap.
Well what if you don't want to eat the food that's here?
Well in Escondido, right around the Sari Park,
it's country land.
There ain't nothing to eat right around here.
But if you go out towards the Interstate 15
Downtown Escondido, there's lots of food there.
We ate at TJ Tacos on the way in
for some authentic Tijuana-style tacos and burritos.
There's one fine dining restaurant here
known as the Watering Hole.
And I say fine dining 'cause it's table service.
Is the food all that fine?
Well you be the judge of that.
This one's pretty popular to eat at because the dining area
actually overlooks the wilderness area
and you can see the giraffes eating
right out in front of it as you dine.
If you do want to eat here,
I recommend you make a reservation on OpenTable.
Book them online.
When I looked at this, we had to book
at least a couple of weeks ahead of time
to actually get a table here.
The sixth thing to know is about where to stay.
And something really unique about the Safari Park
is you can actually stay inside the park.
There are these camping and glamping tents.
They're gonna cost you $300 starting
for the basic tents, double occupancy.
The fancy glamping tents that have power and heat,
those start at $460 and go up from there
if you add more than two people.
Now, if you're looking for more luxurious accommodations,
well Escondido's home to a number of business hotels,
Homewood Suites, Hampton Inn, that sort of thing.
If you're looking for something a little bit more vacationy,
something catered to tourists,
then you might wanna check out the hotels
in Carlsbad or Oceanside.
Those are the closest beach communities,
about a 30 minute drive in from there.
Or Downtown San Diego where a lot of San Diego's hotels are.
Like I say, 30 to 60 minute drives from there too.
And now before I get into the best attractions around here,
the seventh thing to know is about
should you visit the Safari Park or the San Diego Zoo
if you can only visit one park?
Well, really depends what you're looking for.
If you're looking to see animals in their native habitat,
you should visit the Safari Park because the Africa Tram,
the safari experiences, they're really cool
and that's what animals actually look like
when they're just in nature.
I think that's pretty neat.
If you're trying to pack in the most animals
in the smallest amount of time
and you don't want to leave Downtown San Diego
'cause that's where you're staying,
then go to the San Diego Zoo
because the Safari Park, it's a way out here.
And now if you're wondering,
can you visit them in the same day?
I'm gonna say no.
They're so far apart and both of them are so big
you definitely need to have two days, one for each.
The eighth thing to know are about
the best animal attractions here,
and there are a lot of them
so these are just my personal favorites.
One of the biggest animals you can see.
We were just really enjoying seeing the elephants.
And apparently they're camera shy
'cause I turned the camera on and they walked off that way.
But these are pretty neat
'cause you can get pretty close to them.
There's a lot of elephants,
like eight-ish that I count on one hand.
They're clearly doing construction here,
so viewing is suboptimal.
But find your way through Roar & Snore and the Lion Camp
and get up here to see these majestic animals.
(speaker vocalizing)
(child vocalizing)
Now our daughter's favorite animal here,
definitely the chubby unicorns,
which you may know by the name rhinoceros.
Another one of my favorite attractions is the Tiger Trail.
This is home to Sumatran tigers.
And well, the tiger's sleeping just back there.
Neat bamboo on the trail.
And what's also kind of cool
if you're looking for someplace warm to eat
because you're here in the winter,
the little, they call it the Sambutan Longhouse,
it's nice and heated in here in the winter.
So check out these tables if you're looking
for someplace to get out of the cold.
Now one of the really unique exhibits here
at the Safari Park, and definitely much smaller
than the elephants, are the platypus.
There are two platypus, platypi, that are Australian animals
that are the only platypus
that are living outside of Australia.
They're in Walkabout Australia.
They're nocturnal animals, so if you wanna see them,
you have to come late in the day,
though be prepared for a long line.
We actually gave up on them because the line was so long.
There's kangaroos here too.
You gotta be here early in the day to see them
'cause the kangaroos don't stay up late at night.
And around the Safari Park
there's also lots of things for kiddos to do.
They've got a goat petting zoo,
they've got little playgrounds all around.
So if you're here with the young'uns,
they're sure to enjoy it too.
And the last thing to know
is that we've got more videos on San Diego or beyond.
If you're looking to visit the San Diego Zoo
you'll find a link right here in the screen
or in the description below.
Also our guides on SeaWorld and many more.
Well, fellow explorers, as usual, we won't say goodbye
'cause we're gonna see you in the next video.