Every big journey starts with small steps. Our “African” safari started with a visit to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.
Last updated: December 22, 2025
Off on an Adventure in the San Diego Zoo Safari Park
What if I tell you there is a little safari trip waiting for you out there. A place that provides home to rescued and injured animals, harbors those that were born in captivity and won’t be able to survive in the wild. A place where you can see a tiny piece of Africa under the Southern California sun.
It’s not nearly as flawless as it may sound. The biggest drawback is long lines you have to bear with before reaching the “front row”. Or if waiting really gets on your nerves, you can pay extra for priority access.
So when the long-awaited weekend rolled in and kids were finally out of school, we jumped in the car and headed to the San Diego Safari Park. With an approximately 2.5-hour drive from Los Angeles to San Diego, we planned for a full day adventure.
The San Diego Safari Park can’t possibly substitute for a real African safari trip. But with its wide variety of rescued, injured, and born in captivity animals, such as giraffes, lions, rhinos, antelopes, zebras, and gazelles, it’s a small adventure a family can dream of.
About the San Diego Zoo Safari Park
The Safari Park is a part of the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, an international nonprofit conservation organization. The place is home to more than 3,100 animals that represent more than 340 species. Among the most popular safari dwellers are African rhinos, antelopes, Arabian oryxes, giraffes, zebras, and lions.
The San Diego Zoo Safari Park is divided into several sections, each of which houses distinctive flora and fauna. Put on comfortable shoes and wander across 1,800-acre park, stopping at Lion Camp to see big cats or making acquaintances with the acclimated inhabitants of the Australian habitat.
What to Expect
The animals have enough space to roam freely in their respective fenced environments. Raised boardwalks, trails, and in-park roads, however, are crowded. Thousands of people visit both the San Diego Zoo Safari Park and the San Diego Zoo daily. Yet somehow, the safari park feels less packed – certainly less crowded than the SeaWorld San Diego, a home to rescued marine animals surrounded by much more controversy.
Safari Ride
The Safari Ride is the ultimate adventure in the Zoo Safari Park. The 15-minute tram ride is in essence a narrated guided tour across the safari section where you can see rhinos, giraffes, zebras, antelopes, and many other mammals with African roots.
Advantages: The excursion is enjoyable not only for kids but adults as well. It may be the closest trip to a real safari tour many of the visitors ever experience.
Disadvantages: Every activity has two sides. The biggest disadvantage of the San Diego Zoo Safari Ride is long lines. If you’ve purchased a general admission ticket, prepare to spend 1-1.5 hours in line, waiting for your turn to board a game viewing wagon.
TIP: Visitors with preferred admission skip the line and head straight to the front row. If you visit the San Diego Zoo Safari Park with small kids who get tired quickly by idly standing in the line, this may be your ideal option.
After waiting for, what it felt like, the eternity, Dylan and I were ready to pay an additional $25 per person for a preferred, or VIP if you wish, access to the front of the line. A park employee, however, assured us that at that point of time and our spots in the line, we would claim our seats on the tram in no time. He was right. It looked that the closer we got to the front, the faster the line moved.
Is the San Diego Zoo Safari Park Worth It?
The San Diego Zoo Safari experience is worth it. And before some readers roll their eyes and scroll down to write opinionated comments, let me tell you who the Safari Park is good for and who should definitely skip it.
If you have a real African safari planned out, please save your money for souvenirs. Although the animals roam freely in their designated sections of the zoo, the San Diego Safari Park is limited in the numbers of living creatures and real-life experiences.
In other words, you won’t see a lion patiently stalking its prey or a rhino charging the next muddy river. Simply because there is no river or even a murky pond in the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. And the lions have their own habitat, separated from all other herbivores.
With that said, the Zoo Safari Park is in no way a substitute for a real, eye-opening, and sometimes blood-freezing safari adventure. Yet if the actual thing is nowhere on the horizon, consider visiting the zoo safari as a means to introduce your kids to the wild world out there beyond what they read about in books or catch a glimpse of in movies and cartoons.
Zoo Safari Park in Photos
