Wildlife Explorers Basecamp at San Diego Zoo

It may seem contradictory to use high tech to bring kids closer to nature, but that’s what is happening at San Diego Zoo’s Wildlife Explorers Basecamp. Combining active play features with interactive touchscreen games, animations and live animals, the Basecamp adds a new dimension to family travels by nurturing children’s natural empathy for animals.

Basecamp allows families to experience four different ecosystems: Rainforest, Wild Woods, Marsh Meadows and Desert Dunes, all while meeting the wildlife living in each. The Wild Woods area features innovative “parallel play” opportunities, including climbing through a huge tree house. It is accessed by a suspension bridge, a net tunnel and a spiral staircase to approximate the experience of the squirrel monkeys living in the habitat. Another parallel play experience is provided by a waterfall, with a splash pad and intermittent jets.

Desert Dunes features a boulder play area where young visitors can climb and scramble among them and cool off in caves as foxes, prairie dogs and burrowing owls do. The pathways in Marsh Meadows give a sense of living in habitats such as swamps and estuaries along with frogs, fish and other wetland wildlife.

At Jake’s Cool Critters, kids meet snakes, crocodiles, turtles and endangered Fijian iguanas. Elsewhere in this section, kids can find a two-toed sloth and a porcupine with a prehensile tail. Throughout the Basecamp are fresh, high-tech, interactive experiences such as the projected migration flyover and microscopes to encourage kids to look more closely at tiny creatures.

Beyond learning about the creatures that share the planet, the mission of Basecamp is to help young visitors to empathize with wildlife and learn more about how everyone can help them to survive their native habitats.