Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Traveling to Rock City in central Kansas, which you can read about here Rock City in Kansas probably wouldn’t have been worth it if we didn’t plan something else to go along with it. So, we went to the Rolling Hills Zoo outside of Salina on our same road trip.
We got to the zoo around 1. It was not busy and I was a little surprised with the lack of people. Especially with how nice the zoo is. I mean, there was hardly anybody there. We were there in the middle of the week, though, and I’m assuming the weekends are busier.
Rolling Hills is an AZA-accredited zoo. What that means for you is that you should be a member of an accredited zoo because these zoos have reciprocity programs. We’re a member of the Sedgwick County Zoo (also accredited) so we got discount admission at Rolling Hills. We only paid half price to get in. Some of the zoos in the program have 100% reciprocity and some have 50%. There are approximately 150 zoos/aquariums that participate. In Kansas, there are 7 zoos. But there are zoos all over the country, and there are even some in Canada and Mexico. So, always check with the zoo before going in to see if they have a reciprocal program. I was sure glad I asked! Side note, the fact that I saved money on admission helped me feel better about spending an arm and a leg for a cheeseburger. Although it was good.
They provide a map for you to explore the zoo, and at each stop, Wyatt had to direct us to the next stop. He was an excellent map guide.
We went around a large lake that has animal habitats stationed all around the lake. One of our favorite animals was the snow leopard. We were able to see every animal in the place in approximately 2 1/2 hours. Sadly, one of the rhinos that we saw was very old, and she died the following week.
At Kid’s Country (the petting zoo), you can pay a $1 and get an ice cream cone (really!) filled with food to fill the animals. After you give out all the food, you can give the ice cream cone to an animal. The kids loved it! There was a goat that was being a “bully” goat and the kids felt sorry for the poor little goats that were getting horned by the bully goat. They made sure to get food to the nice ones.
After the petting zoo, we headed to the inside wildlife museum. Rolling Hills has a 64,000 square foot museum that’s part of the zoo. The museum was my kids’ favorite part of the day. It’s nicely decorated, and it has 6 different habitats. There’s North America, African tundra, the Arctic, rainforests, the Middle East, and the far East (the great wall of China). There are hundreds of animals and four real-life waterfalls. There’s also people in the exhibits. For example, there is a person that’s a snake-charmer in the Eastern habitat. He kinda creeped out Wyatt because he was so life-like, and Wyatt still talks about the “people” in the museum.
There’s also a play area for the kids where the kids performed a puppet show and ran around for a good amount of time. 4 hours was the perfect amount of time for us at the zoo to see everything. We also timed it right because we went to the outside (hot) part first and then went to the inside (cool) part last. Definitely check out Rolling Hills Zoo if you’re in the area. Or make a day trip out of it and hit up Rock City and the Zoo!