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Summer Road Trip Series: Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch
Summer is here and sometimes you need to get away with the kids even for the day to get a change of scenery. We recently took a trip to the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch and I would say it is a great idea for a road trip that is not too far from home but far enough to see some new things!
If you can extend your trip to more than just a day you can even add the Natural Bridge Caverns to your trip itinerary! This trip though was just for the day so we only visited the Wildlife Ranch but plan to return to see the caverns in the near future!
The address for this park is: 26515 Natural Bridge Caverns Rd.
San Antonio, TX 78266; which from my home in Portland is a 2 and a half-hour drive, which in my opinion is the perfect time for a day trip.
Some Tips for the Visit:
- This is not a CHEAP exhibit, so plan for the costs. You have to buy tickets at the entrance for each person in your vehicle, and if you want to be able to throw food at the animals that costs money too. All together for two adults, two children, and two bags of animal food we paid almost $100. (Children under 3 are free).
- We went towards the end of the day, and it wasn’t too terribly crowded so that was nice. There were a few spots near the Zebras and Ostriches that the traffic got a little backed up.
- They have a food court and a Giraffe exhibit at the very front of the property. While we did not eat at the park, we did park and have everyone visit the restroom before driving through the safari. They also have a restroom stop about halfway through the drive. So there are emergency restrooms available for those with tiny bladders.
- If you make all of the stops and really take your time you can spend around 2 hours in the park. If you are more like us and do not make too many stops, I think we took a little over an hour.
- You do get a Guide Book at the beginning that has all the information about the different species of animals that you will see. We tried our best to locate and identify them, but I think we missed a few.
All in all our kids LOVED driving through and getting to climb around the car to see all of the animals hanging out on the sides of the road.
The animals are all pretty accustomed to seeing the cars and people throwing food out of the windows at them. When they see you they will start to approach to see if you are going to throw food out. The ONLY animal that got really close to our car was the Ostrich, the others kept their distance.
One of the coolest things was just getting to see the animals walking around freely and getting really close to them.
We saved the Giraffe exhibit for the end, and it was really sweet and I think Giraffes are our favorite to visit at any zoo!
But the Ostrich was by far the funniest (and most aggressive), we even had one stick its head in the back seat and bite one of our kid’s car seats. (The kid was luckily not in it at the time).
This was a really great adventure for the day, and we were able to have two car picnics for lunch and dinner and made it home in the evening just in time for everyone to head to bed. If you want to make it, even more, cost-effective you can even pack lunches and snacks in a cooler and enjoy a picnic. Or you can even account for added costs and eat at the park.
Where are you adventuring this summer? Be sure to check out the other articles in this series!
Float the Frio
