Any Zoos you plan on visiting next year?

I have plans to go to Dallas in mid-November for a short 4 day trip. I'd be visiting the Dallas Zoo, Fort Worth Zoo and Dallas World Aquarium.

A trip to Europe in December is a possibility. Perhaps Vienna or a re-visit to Paris, although neither would be longer than a week and nothing has been finalized.

In March I'm going to Greece for 12 days, although I don't think I'll make it to any of the major collections. The Crete Aquarium I will almost definitely visit, though.

 

Awesome thanks. I'm at the early stages of planning so will definitely take these ideas into consideration

 

Well since we're nearly in November I thought I'd update my plans. Totally failed on America, maybe next year if I can get a better job... But I did manage Hamerton! So that's 50% of my plans completed, and I have clocked up a few more collections than I originally anticipated.

 

Let's see. Most of this was possible at one point in time, but life has gotten in the way!
- I did go to ZooAmerica and Lehigh Valley (twice), but in August, not January.
- Did Adventure Aquarium in February, on a rainy day.
- Did Bronx in March.
- Did VA Zoo and VA Aquarium in May, didn't have time to also do the Living Museum.
What else I did: National Aquarium, several visits to National Zoo and Philly Zoo, Brandywine Zoo.

Didn't make it to:
- Queens/Prospect/Staten Island/NYA: Queens has difficult parking right now, and the others just didn't happen.
-NJ Zoos, along with New England: I had all of these scheduled, but then my dad got a different job, had issues with selling his house, etc. so he hasn't been able to.
-Ohio trip was planned up to right before, but my other dog started having seizures so the funds for the trip went to an MRI for him instead.

 

Is the dog okay?

 

Thank you for asking. His MRI and spinal tap both came back normal, so he was diagnosed with epilepsy in the absence of anything, but we still don't really know what's going on. His first, and worst, seizure was a few days after my other dog was put to sleep in June.

 

I'm sorry. What was the issue?


On a lighter note, the plan has kinda changed for California. We are missing out LA and Sequoia NP entirely and going in the late Summer instead for warmer and nicer weather (especially in San Francisco, it can get a bit chilly, or so I understand). But this is good news, because it means I have a greater chance of persuading my parents to go to the Safari park as well as the zoo (twice, maybe).

The funny thing is that we might actually end up getting an annual pass to the zoo and safari park because apparently it is cheaper than the multi-day pass since we will probably be going to the zoo twice and the safari park one. The even crazier thing is that we are still going to the Monterey bay Aquarium and going whale watching, then taking the plane from Monterey to San Diego.

And none of this is booked or even confirmed yet, but looking more and more likely.
The only problem being? There is absolutely no way of planning a trip to SDZ because you are guaranteed to get lost in the aptly named Lost Forest.

 

Damm dude... Good luck! You MUST take photos!

 

Thanks! I certainly will!

 

Well, since 2020 plans are being talked about, here’s mine:

- a second edition of the Holland tour myself, @Nisha, @MagpieGoose and our friend not on the forum did in April, this time in June. Zoos on the docket are Planckendael, a revisit to Zie-ZOO, a possible revisit to Best (if their building works are done by then) and if not Overloon, GaiaZOO, Dortmund, Wuppertal, Dierenrijk, Amersfoort, Wildlands, Avifauna, Stichting Schildpaddencentrum, and a revisit to Pairi Daiza.
- a short trip to Denmark: Copenhagen, Den Bla Planet and Krokodille Zoo
- a possible stint in Germany with MagpieGoose again: Hagenbeck, Walsrode, Hannover, Gelsenkirchen, Cologne, Frankfurt and Wilhelma
- a possible revisit to Czechia with said friend not on Zoochat - doing Prague, Plzen and maybe Jihlava
- a trip to Scotland to do Edinburgh Zoo, Edinburgh Butterfly House, Highland Wildlife Park, Scottish Owl Centre, and Lakeland Wildlife Oasis and Lake District Wildlife Park on the way up there. With a bunch of different people on and off this forum.
- a potential trip to Ireland with workmates; Dublin, Fota and Belfast are definitely on the list, but we’re considering adding Tayto and Wild Ireland.

As far as local travel is concerned, I’m being dragged to Monkey World at some point in the year, and I have a friend from the Netherlands visiting the UK for the first time so we will be doing London, Bristol, Howletts, Twycross and Chester together

A lot of the above are tentative - only the Dutch friend visiting and the second Dutch zoo tour are confirmed, with Denmark being almost finished with booking and planning.

 

I don't like to flight-shame people, but to me it makes no sense to fly from Monterey to San Diego, the distance is not that large and in between is some gorgeous coastline with Elephant seals (and Los Angeles....)

I also don't think people from outside California / USA can get annual passes for San Diego...

 

You are right, and I did debate this endlessly with my parents, but I am not enough to drive a rental car yet, and my mother doesn't feel comfortable driving, especially since she would have work to do on the way. And we agreed that it wasn't really worth it to go to LA because nothing there really interests us even though we are avid film-watchers. And Morro Bay will have to wait I guess.
If we do it in summer, there is a chance my mother will be able to drive, but otherwise, we will have to regrettably fly.
Thanks for drawing attention to the membership thing. I guess we will just have to go either to SDZ twice or one to each. Now that is a difficult decision. Where should I go?

I think I will go to SDZ for the first day for sure, and then if I manage to see everything decently well, I'll go to SDZSP but if not back to SDZ.

 

Tried this when I was there in October. That annual price is only for locals. If you're not local, the price is actually like $300+ for the annual pass. Your best bet is to do the 3-for-1. That will get you 3 entries to the Zoo, Safari Park, or Seaworld. You can use it more than once for the same place or once for each.

I haven't read your full travel plans, but I would also recommend visiting the Birch Aquarium and the Living Coast Discovery Center of you have time. Both are smaller places, but excellent.

 

Thank you!
That is great advice and is much appreciated!

 

So far my 2020 is shaping up nicely in terms of zoo-visits...

Confirmed:

• April - Zoofanatika 2020 in Ostrava (basically Zoohistorica for Central-Europeans )
• Throughout the year - most of the bigger Czech collections (hardly surprising right?) + Wien
• August - Charity run for pangolins in Ostrava (although there will probably be not much time for the zoo itself)

Hopes and unconfirmed plans:

• February - some shorter (3-4 days) trip either to Germany (I have two possible routes in mind) or Poland.
• June - a week-long trip to Germany + Holland - re-visiting Burgers (this time with more time to enjoy the whole zoo) Apenheul, Cologne and some more zoos around there.
• At some point during the year, I would like to re-visit Bojnice too

Hmmm...intersting...

 

I don't know what I'm going to be doing in 2020. I planned on another international trip but outside of Europe this time, but that doesn't seem as though it's going to happen now. I then planned an international trip back to Europe again (which has taken multiple different forms) but I don't think that'll happen either. Most likely I'll just be checking out some more US zoos I've got on my list, though I'm not quite sure where/when yet.

~Thylo

 

I plan on going to the Bronx Zoo for the gazillionth time