When my first born was one year old, we took him to our local zoo for a day trip. He was too little and even though he had a good time, he didn’t understand much at that age. So a week ago he started school on pre-K 4 and out of the sudden he started to ask about animals in the zoo and his curiosity grew.

So yesterday we planned a fun family day trip down to Cape May to visit the County Zoo. I’ve heard great things about the park and zoo and decided that it was worth the drive. From our house in North Jersey to Cape May it’s about 2 hours and a half drive. So we planned accordingly to go to the zoo first and then spend the day down the shore.

The Cape May County Zoo is open every day except for Christmas, weather permitting. The hours of operation are from 10:00 am until 3:30pm in the winter and 10:00am until 4:30pm in the summer. One of the best features about this zoo is that it’s free. Yes, FREE admission! With that said, there is a donation bucket at the entrance gate where you can drop in some money to help them keep the facility going.

When we entered the zoo, the first exhibits that we came across were the barnyard animals which were really friendly. There were pigs, goats and a cow. They come right up to the fence line looking for food and one of the goats was extremely-friendly and Gabriel enjoyed petting it.

As you move down the path, you’ll visit with various exotic birds. In addition to that there are tons of guinea birds walking around everywhere. Of course the boys chased them!

Once inside, we strolled along the paved paths and wooden boardwalk taking our pace and enjoying every single exhibit. There are snack & beverage stands and park benches throughout the property. We visited on a Saturday around midday and it was not over-crowded and there was plenty of room for everyone to maintain social distance. No lines and such a nice shaded open space to walk around.

We stopped to see the beautiful flamingos. I saw a post of them on NJMOM Instagram and thought it was so pretty. They were taking an afternoon nap.

My boys kept asking for lions, zebras, giraffes … and yes! You can find all those popular favorites along the way.

We headed down the long wooden boardwalk path and into the Savannah so that we could check out the ostrich, giraffes, zebra and other African safari-type of animals. The boys were so happy!

On our return walk back into the main viewing areas within the zoo, we finally spotted the lions. They were both so relaxed and enjoying the nice shaded breeze.

One of the highlights was the bears! They were walking pretty close to the fence so we got a very close up encounter! So nice!

My boys enjoyed every single animal exhibit. They would jump in excitement every time we got close to a fence to check a different animal. We spend about 2 1/2 hours visiting the zoo. We paced slowly around and visited every thing.

There is a small cafe by the African Savanah where you can grab a bite to eat and a drink. You can also bring water and drinks to the zoo. No outside food is allowed but on your way out of the zoo you will find a picnic area and a huge playground which is right across from the parking lot. So you can enjoy time at the park upon leaving the zoo.

Overall we really love this zoo. Is great for the kids and adults. There are tons of animals to see and the path to walk around is beautiful. We will definitely make it a yearly tradition to bring the boys every September.

And since we drove almost 2 1/2 hours, we decided to spend the day exploring things around. We visited Cape May Town Center where we last visited September 2017. We had lunch, walked around and then drove to the Wildwoods boardwalk where we rented a bike and went for a stroll with the kids. It was such a fun family day trip!