Recommended by Amy Whitley of pitstopsforkid…

Wildlife Safari, Winston

Address 1790 Safari Road, Winston, OR 97496 Map, Tel (541) 679-6761 Call, Directions Take Exit 119 West on Hwy 42/N 99 towards Winston. Turn right on Lookingglass Road. Website

As a card-carrying PETA member, I was dubious of the quality of Wildlife Safari…until I paid it a visit. It truly is a fantastic zoological park. It's located just a few miles off I-5 south of Roseburg, but don't worry…the colorful roadside signs will alert you of its proximity in plenty of time, and if they don't, any child in your car able to read will. Upon entering the park, you have two options: begin with the driving tour of the safari grounds, where you'll cruise slowly through various sanctuaries housing free-roaming zebras, giraffes, elephants, and everything else you can imagine (lions and tigers and bears oh my!), or park and walk through the center safari square, where you'll find the gift shop, food (pretty decent!) and some smaller animals, like reptiles, turtles, a very loud monkey, and a small train ride. Intuition would tell you to start there--get out and release your own monkeys from the confines of the car--but my suggestion is the driving tour, because with admission, you get to go through twice. It works well to drive through, park and visit the walking grounds, then drive through once more on your way out.

Each drive through the grounds takes about 30-45 minutes on average, but kids won't get restless with so much to see. We usually spend a total of two hours at the park, but like Enchanted Forest, you could certainly make an entire afternoon of it.

Seasonal hint: if you're there in the middle of the summer, try to plan your driving tours for the cooler parts of the day (evening or morning). Most of the animals retire to their shade enclosures during mid-day. I've also heard it's not a good idea to go in the rain, but we personally spent one very rainy day at the safari and saw many animals.

A word or two about the admission fee. In my opinion, it's fairly steep at $17.99 per adult, $11.99 per child over age three. However, if you think you may pass by Winston even once more in the next year, the family annual membership might be the best value. We found that for our family of five, the pass was only marginally more expensive than a single day admission, and we ended up visiting three times that year (once with grandparents who were also covered under our membership).