You’re having a great day at the zoo – the weather is nice, the animals were active, and your kids were able to release a lot of that energy. But now the day is ending and you’re preparing to head home. That’s when your kids say the two words that perhaps you’ve been avoiding all day: Gift Shop. For us, the gift shop has become a routine part of a visit to a new zoo. But when you travel to zoos so often, it can become expensive! So during the holiday season, we keep Zoos in mind.
While the gift shop is one way to incorporate the zoo into your gift giving, it’s not the only way…but let’s start there. Admittedly, many zoos do not have online gift shops. That can be frustrating, however, most zoos can still take orders and mail gifts to you. For example, this Fall I ordered my wife a hoody reading: “This is My Zoo, These are my monkeys” from the Lincoln Children’s Zoo in Lincoln, Nebraska. They were able to ship it to me. Many other zoos will do the same. While rare, some zoos do have an online store, like the Cincinnati Zoo.
Ok so maybe you don’t want to give the gift of “Stuff”. Zoos can be very helpful in gifts that are more experienced base. How about a membership? Already have one? How about an animal encounter? For our daughter’s eighth birthday this year, we let her choose an animal encounter. Having a fall birthday, we narrowed down her choices to ones that were available on her birthday weekend. Out of feeding birds, feeding a bison, or a penguin encounter, she chose the penguin encounter – and she absolutely loved it!
So check out below for our guide to gifts for the Zoo lover on your Christmas list!
Gift Guide
- Membership – Giving a membership to a zoo is an awesome gift! Most zoos offer free parking for members, so in most cases your gift isn’t costing the recipient any money – it gets them unlimited entry to the zoo to create memories! We’ve been gifted this in the past, and love doing this for others. Brookfield Zoo is one of many that has a “gift membership” option on their website.
- Zoo Experiences – This one might be the least fulfilling as there isn’t anything tangible to give…but giving dollars with the specific purpose of a Zoo experience can be a great idea. Our family has experienced things at zoos like Elephant training, Alligator feeding, Camel rides, and ostrich feeding just to name a few. Looking ahead to next year, a few things on our list include a penguin encounter, a bison feeding, and maybe even pelican feeding! While some zoo experiences are free, these specific ones come with a price. Check out our recap of 2019 animal encounters that we did, complete with our review of them and links to set up your own!
- Ornaments – If you’re like us, you have a Christmas party you attend where you bring an ornament for an exchange. You can find these in any zoo gift shop, and they’re a bit more outside the box than typical ornaments. Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo has some cool ornaments available online.
- Zoo or animal branded merchandise – So most people might not have a Zoo hoody on their wish list. However, you might be one of the thousands of people who followed along with Cinncinati Zoo as they introduced us to Fiona the Hippo. Animals with dramatic entrances into the world require a lot of expensive care, so they’ll often build apparel lines around these animals to raise support. For something closer to home, check out this wooden rhino from the Potawatomi Zoo in South Bend, Indiana.
- Animal Artwork – I’ll admit that this idea still doesn’t make perfect sense to me…but maybe it does to you. Some zoos will let you buy paintings made by the animals. St. Louis Zoo does this – check it out and see for yourself if this is amazing art…or something your toddler could have created.
Thanks for reading our Zoo lover’s gift guide! For ways to give back to zoos, check out our #GivingTuesday article!
© 2019, Zoo With Us. All rights reserved.