Special Report: San Diego Roars

Color correspondent Alena Nicholas was on safari for fall color in San Diego on Thanksgiving Day and Orange Friday and found it at the San Diego Zoo and San Diego Zoo Safari Park. And, did San Diego roar!

In 2016, the San Diego Zoo celebrates its 100th birthday. So, during this celebratory period is the time to visit what Trip Advisor rates as the world’s best zoo.

What makes the San Diego Zoo so good is both the breadth of species to be seen (Chinese Giant pandas, Australian koalas, African elephants, Malaysian tigers, California condors, African lions…) and the natural, seemingly unfenced habitats in which they reside.

That means there aren’t many bars or mesh wire fences through which to observe or photograph the animals, but open space instead, and the areas provided for the animals are expansive and have natural settings.

At the San Diego Zoo Safari Park (an hour north of the San Diego Zoo in Escondido) visitors ride carts, trams and now motorized trikes, along roads and paved trails into the savannah where they see animals interacting as they would in the wild.

One of the interactive programs at the Safari Park is Cheetah Safari where the “jaw-dropping” speed of a cheetah is demonstrated as it races along a 330-foot long track. Programs at both locations immerse visitors in better appreciating wild animals and the threats to their continued existence in the wild.

On Alena’s safari to San Diego, she captured not just the amazing and colorful inhabitants of the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park, but also the foliage to be seen in beautiful Balboa Park and throughout the region: native California fan palms taking on a yellow-orange glow, black oak dressed in lime, yellow and orange, exotic maroon fountain grass, orange-red coastal marsh grasses and trees carrying lime, yellow, orange and red confetti.

San Diego’s climate is so temperate and inviting that the seasonal change is hardly evident, though it can be felt in the autumn air, seen in San Diego’s glorious sunsets and found along stream beds where golden cottonwood and orange black oak paint the landscape.

Early December is an ideal time to visit San Diego.  The weather is good (this week, it will be in the low 70s), and the last of California’s fall color will continue to peak through the next two weeks. In two words… GO NOW!

Peak (75-100%) GO NOW! – San Diego Zoo and Safari Park