our visit to the birmingham zoo

Last year, we only briefly passed through Birmingham on our way to New Mexico and it was enough to get me to fall in love. This year, we knew we wanted to spend a couple of days exploring beautiful Birmingham, including taking a trip to the Birmingham Zoo. We are huge fans of our local zoo, The Palm Beach Zoo, where we've been members for close to five years by now. It's always hard to imagine being impressed by another zoo the way we are with our home zoo, but the Birmingham Zoo did not disappoint. The zoo contained so much open space and so much green space. Not only did we get to walk around and explore all the zoo had to offer, but there were places to run and enjoy the fall weather. Everything was so green and beautiful!

The zoo had a lot of interactive exhibits that let you get up close to the animals, including goats and other farm animals, lorikeets and (my kids favorite) giraffes! The giraffe feeding was such a unique and cool experience. Carmen wasn't sure what to make of the giraffe, but Ethan loved it -- especially seeing the giraffes long tongues!

The Birmingham Zoo had a lot of really cool animal residents different from the ones at our zoo, including some super adorable red pandas. (I think Carmen and I loved the red pandas most of all.) Each exhibit had a ton of information to share about each animal who resided in it and the animals all had a lot of room to play, climb and explore. Many of the exhibits contained indoor and outdoor viewing areas, too. The zoo housed all kinds of unique animals, from bumble bee dart frogs to red river hogs and everything in between.

Ethan's favorite part of our zoo is the zoo train and carousel, which the Birmingham Zoo also had, much to his delight. The zoo train actually went around a great portion of the zoo and had a great pirate theme to get the kids into the Halloween spirit.

As we left the zoo, Ethan declared that even though Birmingham was just a stop on the way to our destination, it would make an amazing place to just visit on its own. I completely agree. There are so many wonderful things to see and do around Birmingham with kids and the zoo is definitely a must on that list. The zoo is perfect for adults and children alike -- anyone who appreciates nature and the amazing animals we are lucky to share this planet with.

Visit https://www.birminghamzoo.com to plan your visit!