Have you been to the Wildlife Safari before?
Just over a week ago we were down in southern Oregon visiting family and a few of the areas attractions that we hadn’t seen. It’s crazy to believe that I lived down there for the first 15 years of my life, and have visited down there regularly since and have never took the time to explore what used to be my ‘back yard’.
While planning our visit I knew that I wanted to go to the Wildlife Safari. The Wildlife Safari is in Winston, Oregon (close to Roseburg) and is the only wild animal drive-through park in the state of Oregon. The Wildlife Safari first opened back in 1972, and currently features hundreds of animals from all over the world.
When you first arrive you will pay admission when you drive up in your car, and you can choose to visit the drive-through park or you can park in the parking lot and head towards another area that you can also explore called the Safari Village, which is a zoo-type styled area that has many different animals to observe. There is also a restaurant and gift shop as well.
The drive through portion of the park was a really fun experience for my family. We were lucky and went late afternoon on a cool day so many of the animals were out and about, including tigers, giraffes, zebras, lions, elephants, bison, elk and bears. It took us over an hour and half to go through the drive through portion – which was a little longer than I expected. The kids loved looking for the animals – and some were pretty friendly! There is an area that you can purchase feed cups and feed some animals (no touching!) which was definitely a highlight of the afternoon for the kids.
In total, we spent about 4 hours all together at the Wildlife Safari – and would have been there longer if we would have timed it better so we could eat lunch there as well.
Wildlife Safari visiting tips:
- Both the drive-through and the safari village are included with your admission price, however there are other things such as camel rides, feeding the animals, gold panning activities, and snacks that are available for an additional price.
- You can drive through the park twice if you’d like during your visit.
- You cannot have pets in your vehicle on the site, however if you are traveling with pets there are kennels available outside the village.
For more information on the Wildlife Safari you can check out their website here.
We really enjoyed finally visiting this place! Glad we can check that one-off of the travel bucket list, and I’m sure we will visit again when we are in the area.
~Melissa
