The San Diego Zoo
Exotic animals are stars on YouTube, but there’s nothing like seeing them live, said Christopher Reynolds in the Los Angeles Times. At the San Diego Zoo (sandiegozoo.org), you don’t need a mouse or monitor to “lock gazes with a viper” or “coo at an adorable giant panda.” When I visited recently, “one of the giraffes stared me down for so long I thought it might demand to see my ID.” Now in its 97th year, the nation’s second-most-visited zoo houses a whopping 3,700 animals and can proudly trumpet its role in bringing back such threatened species as pandas and California condors. I spent one morning transfixed by a panda mother of six who was breakfasting on bamboo stalks. Later, I got “slimed by rhino spittle,” fed a squadron of flamingos, and communed with my old favorites, the same Galápagos tortoises that have lived at the zoo since 1928. Beat that, Internet.
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