This past weekend I visited "The Wilds" with my wife, step-children, and mother-in-law.  If you've never heard of The Wilds, that's not too surprising to me because I hadn't heard of it until we received our Columbus Zoo membership as a gift from my dad.

The Wilds is a 10,000 acre wildlife preserve located in southeastern Ohio.  It's home to a variety of species from around the world, including zebras, rhinos, giraffes, bison, and many other animals.  The animals at The Wilds are specifically chosen to be herbivores, so that if they escape they pose little threat to humans or other animals in the vicinity of the preserve.

When you arrive at The Wilds, you park your vehicle in a parking lot near the road:

A shuttle bus picks you up and takes you to the Johnson Visitor Center, where you get a ticket to go on one of their "safari" tours.  The Visitor Center also has a small gift shop where you can rent binoculars.

Depending on the weather and your luck, you may see any of a wide range of animals at The Wilds.  Here are the animals we saw during our visit (I apologize in advance for the blurry quality of some of these pictures - the tour bus tended to rock around a lot as the occupants moved about to get a better view of the animals, blurring several of my shots):

When your tour is over, you're taken to the Gift Shop and Snack Bar in this building:

This is the lobby inside the building above:

 

Here's what the gift shop looks like: