budget,  travel

St. Louis zoo and turtle playground

August 7, 2019 /

On our way to visit my friends in Missouri and Kansas City, we decided to stop for a sleepover in St. Louis. It is about an 8 hour drive from Atlanta and we wanted to explore what the city has to offer. A week or so before we left, my friend informed me that the zoo was free as well as the botanical gardens and a number of museums so we decided to visit the zoo this time. We enjoyed our time in St. Louis so much that we are planning our spring break there next year.

I wasn’t sure what to expect in a free zoo but oh boy were we impressed! We arrived at the zoo around noon local time and ended up spending 4 hours visiting the animals and exhibits. What we liked the most was that we saw so many of the animals up close! It was a great experience! It is very difficult to pick out which animals we liked best but the hippo was definitely top ranking!

We stayed quite a while in the sea lion exhibit which has a tunnel so the sea lions can swim over you and they put on a show! One of them looked like a torpedo. My oldest took quite a few pictures of them.

We loved the penguins! The indoor exhibit was kept at 45 degrees which was a nice breath of cold air after walking around outdoors. The penguins were loud and fun to watch.

Another indoor exbibit was the butterfly house were the butterflies fluttered around you and sometimes would land on people. One landed on my youngest but he shooed it away so I was unable to take a picture. There were at least 4 to 5 other indoor exhibits that we did not have time to visit even with going back to the zoo for an hour the next morning!

Of course, we had to take a few pictures with some of the animal sculptures. I think the gorilla is the size of an actual gorilla or close to it: a little scary! Then my son tried to steal the eggs from the king cobra!

The 2nd day we arrived early (the zoo opens at 8) just as they were letting out the gorillas.

The orangoutans were fun too! They remind me of my children, lol!

If you are ever in the area, the St. Louis Zoo is a must! The boys said it was worth the 8 hour drive and actually even forgot about the drive as we visited the zoo.

The next morning we visited the Turtle Playground which is just a 2 minute drive from the zoo and spent a few minutes climbing the turtle structures and taking pictures.

Even I had to join in the climbing fun!

We did not go the the arch this time but just took a picture from the interstate. This was a very low budget fun time: we payed for our hotel with hotel points which included our breakfast, both the zoo and playground were free and we only spent $14 on drinks at the zoo buying one zoo cup with the $1 refills. That amount includes 3 refills I think. We brought our lunch and some water bottles but since it was hot, we eventually ran out of water therefore needing to buy something to drink to stay hydrated.

Vacationing on a budget at its best!

A bientôt!

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