Discovery Tours at the Zoo

The summer season is finally upon us, which means two things to me: the tourists are here (in droves!) and I get to give my favorite tour at the zoo!

Each summer, from the end of May till around the beginning of September, we offer The Discovery Tour every day, from Noon till 2:00. Actually, we started out calling it a Naturalist Tour, but decided after the first year that The Discovery Tour sounded better. Since I do have to work my regular job (the one I actually get paid to do) I can only do the weekend tours, but it’s still a lot of fun.

For a mere $20.00, a tourist (or a local – we don’t discriminate!) can receive a 2-hour guided tour and learn about not only the animals of the zoo but also the plants, and how they interact. For good measure, I throw in a lot of Alaskan history as well as my personal experiences growing up here.

I have a lot of fun with this tour, but it does require a bit of training to be able to give them their money’s worth. I have taken quite a few classes, read a lot of books, done a lot of on-line research, and picked the brains of a lot of experts around town in preparation for this tour! I don’t mind in the least, however. I love to learn everything I can about the plants and animals, and really enjoy telling people what I’ve learned.

My first tour this season was for a couple from Australia. The lady was so excited to be there: she was cute. The guy was a really nice man – well, both of them were. It was really fun to spend a couple hours with them.

My second tour wasn’t quite as fun as the first one, but was still a good tour. This time it was for a gentleman from Fairbanks who had guests up from Michigan.

One thing I’m not too pleased with about these tours is that you never know who will sign up for them. You show up about half an hour ahead of time, and sit there and wait to see if you’ll have a tour that day or not. Sometimes you might have as many as 20, sometimes none. Most often it’s about 2-6 people, which is very doable.