Even though this zoo was not the biggest we found the best time to visit the Dakota Zoo. We have seen it was full of different amazing animals and huge enclosures for each one. Dakota Zoo was the dream of Marc & Betty Christianson and became a reality in 1961 with the help of volunteers and lots of donations.

The best time to visit the Dakota Zoo is right after school starts because it’s not busy and all the babies are just old enough to come out and play with the adults.  One of the benefits of Unschooling is that when all the “normal” kids go back to school then the zoos, museums, national parks, and aquariums are quit during the week. It hasn’t gotten super cold in North Dakota and you can spend as much time as you want at each exhibit.

Our favorite animal was the baby monkeys that were playing and copying mom.  We enjoyed talking to the Parakeets and watching them interact with each other.  We learned bout which animals Lewis and Clark encountered on their journey west, watched as they feed many of the birds, and had a good laugh as a camel tried to scare off the lawnmower.

We gave this zoo three popcorn out of five popcorns. This was a very small zoo but we got in for free because of our reciprocal zoo pass from the Boonshaft museum.  A lot of the animals were not out and the train and the restaurants were not open because of the time of year.  There were probably 20 people in the whole zoo, the weather was great and the price was right and clean and they were working on expanding.

We also found that there is a huge park, which we think was free with a Ferris wheel and huge slide right next door (it was also closed). There are several playgrounds right outside the zoo that you could play on and a huge grass area for kids to run around.