Hard To Find/Difficult Directions To Zoos

Here's what I do:

Before I take a trip I obtain the street addresses of all the places I intend to visit such as motel, museum, botanical garden, zoo, etc. I plug all of these addresses into my Garmin 765 nav gadget before I hit the road. I print out all the stuff from their web sites including phone numbers and put it into a big folder. I carry the folder in the car with me. So far I haven't had any problems. Of course I don't use public transport. I don't know how well this would work in other countries.

 

It would work in other countries too.

But real man don't use electronical navigate systems. They don't even ask for the direction.... but are still able to find their way (honk, honk)

 

Schwerin Zoo I remember was particularly tricky due to a combination of road works, one-way streets and a city built around lakes that limit your directional options. Where we ended up was, I am sure, the staff car park, but no-one seemed to mind!

 

Yeh, I used to do that. I would just use a map and navigate my way there but when you get old and the vision is no longer 20/15 reading maps is a real pain.

 

OC

The OC Zoo is mildly difficult to find because it is in Irvine Regional Park (in Orange, CA). It is far in from the entrance to Irvine Park.

 

The zoos I visit in NZ/Australia are usually easy to find, as I visit them usually via car. Unless they are in a city they are not easy to reach by public transport. Once I tried to find Humbug Scrub, a small wildlife park in SA, spent ages driving along narrow gravel roads in the bush, many wrong turns and eventually found the place closed!

In Europe/North America/Asia, the zoos I've been to has largely relied on public transport and walking. This is generally easy to do (especially when signage is in English), but I did struggle with Warsaw Zoo (went the wrong way on the tram, a 15 minute trip took over 2 hours) and Plzen Zoo (once we'd found the zoo we still couldn't find the entrance - tried to get in through the admin building I think).

Some are essentially unreachable with public transport, especially those out of the cities, San Diego Zoo Safari Park being a prime example - we had to rent a car (and then pay for parking!) to get there.