WILDLIFE & CONSERVATION
Lion Country Safari
Palm Beach County · South Florida & the Keys
Opened in 1967 and believed to be the first cageless zoo in the country - you drive through it in your own car.
ABOUT THIS PLACE
Lion Country Safari opened in the summer of 1967 in what was then rural western Palm Beach County, with dozens of lions roaming free and a few other species. It is believed to be the first cageless zoo in the country: visitors drive their own cars through the preserve rather than walking past enclosures. The site now covers 320 acres and holds the drive-through safari, a walk-through park you go around on foot afterwards, and a KOA campground, and it is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. The drive itself is four miles long. Convertibles and soft-top vehicles are not allowed through it, for reasons that need no explaining, and the park rents enclosed vehicles to anyone who arrives in one. More than a thousand animals live on the preserve. Safari World, the walk-through park you go around afterwards, covers thirty-three acres and holds exhibits, an animal theater, a petting zoo, miniature golf, paddle boats and giraffe feeding. The idea came out of the African safari parks of the 1960s, and the reversal it introduced, the animals loose and the people in a cage on wheels, is still the whole appeal of it
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