We have experienced over twenty zoos with our children over the years, but Tanganyika Wildlife Park is SPECIAL. This one-of-a-kind wildlife park is a truly exceptional place where your family can experience the adventure and wonder of meeting animals up close and personal. Whether it’s feeding giraffes and lemurs, going behind the scenes to meet and feed Amur Leopards, or an encounter with a new baby rhino… Tanganyika is one attraction our family loves to visit again and again!

With their Best Day Bundle, you can experience two animal encounters, unlimited feeding, and unforgettable memories.

Taking a 3-hour trip to Tanganyika Wildlife Park in Goddard, KS where, as they say in their tagline, “Forget We Bought A Zoo!  The Fouts family built one from the ground up!” was a highlight of our family’s spring adventures!

Tip: Enter to win FREE Tickets to Tanganyika in our latest giveaway!

Tanganyika Wildlife Park is unlike any other zoo we’ve ever visited – this privately owned zoo is small and intimate, but every exhibit is beautiful, immaculate, spacious, and offers the most natural habitat possible for the animals. The entire experience felt like a boutique zoo, truly connecting guests with nature.

So many family outings are geared toward children (adults watch kids play) or entertainment (everyone watches a show), this getaway is incredible for all ages including grandparents, parents, teens, and kids!

Guests to the Tanganyika Wildlife Park may choose to participate in all of their “Wildly Different Experiences,” or you may purchase the opportunities a la carte. For the best value, the Best Day Bundle allows guests to experience the zoo, unlimited feedings, and two Wildly Different Experiences on their visit.

Each experience includes digital photos of your experience. You may choose from over 15 experiences hand-crafted by Tanganyika keepers. They are committed to the best care for the animals and the safest opportunities for visitors. Each animal encounter deepened our understanding and appreciation for animals and how to care for them. 

This is what we experienced during our recent Best Day Bundle Visit!

Giraffe & Friends

During this experience, a hoofstock keeper, gave us a tour of the African/Asian barn. The giraffe exhibit at Tanganyika Wildlife Park is especially beautiful. The zoo uses as many natural barriers as possible to create the best habitat for its animals and the best viewing space for visitors.

We were able to shake hands with monkeys.

It’s not every day you get to pet a warthog! It was fun to meet Betty Boop. You never know who you might meet in the barn. 

We then met the giraffe herd. Each member of our family participated in target training (the giraffes touch the target to their nose) and fed lettuce to the very happy reticulated giraffes. The magnificence and height of these incredible animals were not lost on us. As these gentle giants, each 12-16 feet tall, grabbed lettuce with their 18-inch long tongues, we were impressed by their agility (their necks move and bend easily, and amazingly have seven vertebrae the same as a human neck), and beauty.

Tanganyika Wildlife Park is a giraffe breeding facility. They typically keep mothers and daughters together when they can, noting that giraffes are known for a special mother/daughter bond (as a mom of four girls, I can relate to this!). 

Origins – Behind the Scenes

The Origins Tour was one of my favorite experiences at Tanganyika Wildlife Park. This interactive Behind the Scenes tour gave us the history of the Tanganyika Wildlife Park, and the chance to see many wonderful animals in person (including Amur Leopards), and lions! This was truly a magnificent experience.

Our tour guide shared the history of Tanganyika with us from Jim Fouts’ early beginnings as an employee at Sedgewick County Zoo (nearby in Wichita), to his work at the LA Zoo. With a strong love for birds, he worked for the USDA in Bolivia learning all about South American Zoos. He then purchased a USDA facility in California with the goal of breeding birds. When that endeavor failed, he and his wife moved back to Goddard, Kansas, where she was from, where they were gifted their first five acres of land from family. From that, they began acquiring animals and started operating as a breeding facility. Originally, they did not want to be open to the public as a traditional zoo, only offering tours for special groups. As interest grew over the years, their vision grew and eventually they opened to the public in 2008 as the ever-improving seventy-acre Wildlife Park we see today. We learned about many animals that have been born at the facility over the years.

On the tour, we visited animal barns and saw many beautiful animals, but the most interesting to me was the Amur Leopards, the rarest of big cats. Two live at Tanganyika, one with visible spots and the other appearing to be entirely black (though it also does have spots, they just blend in quite well – you see them when sunlight hits the fur). Mystique, the female leopard, is melanistic (the opposite of albino) and is one of only a few melanistic Amur Leopards in the world. Dima, the male, has visible spots. We also learned that leopards do not purr, they roar (though to me their gentle roar sounded like an excited purr). Each species of cat either roars or purrs, they don’t do both.  We were even able to FEED the Amur Leopards (very safely, as you can see in our photos) – a truly one-of-a-kind experience!

Finally, we met the lions, Ellie and Valkyrie (females), and Nemean (the male). The lions came from a breeding facility in Africa. We first met the girls, weighing 350-400 pounds each, and then the male.  

Feeding Stations at Tanganyika Wildlife Park

In addition to all of the wild encounters, our girls LOVED the Feeding Stations (5 Feeding Stations are included with your All-Day Admission Pass. Unlimited Feedings are included with your Unlimited Pass). Lucy especially loved feeding bunnies. Visitors may feed Ring-tailed lemurs (my teens’ favorite), giraffes, pygmy hippos, Indian Rhino, lorikeets (my husband’s favorite), African tortoises, bunnies, and guinea pigs.

Bunnies, Tortoises, and Guinea Pigs:

Lucy fell in love with the bunnies, spending quite a bit of time with them every day we were at Tanganyika Wildlife Park. Their soft fur and sweet spirit make them a favorite for children.

Ring-Tail Lemurs:

Feeding lemurs is my favorite Tanganyika experience for all park visitors. This exhibit is available to experience for all visitors to Tanganyika and it is a MUST-DO. Our family loves hand-feeding ring-tail lemurs cranberries and they climb on our laps – we love it so much my youngest daughter and I fed them three times during our recent visit!

Lorikeets:

Feeding lorikeets is one of our family’s FAVORITE things to do at Tanganyika. My husband especially enjoys this experience. We were given small cups with nectar and the birds flocked to the sweet treat. Many of us had multiple birds land on us at once – with multiple birds choosing the top of heads as their favorite perch!

Indian Rhino:

Our most special treat during our visit was meeting Monica, the eight-year-old Indian Rhino, and her infant son Marjon! During our encounter we fed Monica fresh lettuce and pet her nose. Her skin is rough and leathery. Weighing 4,500 pounds this herbivore eats 50 pounds of food per day. Her mate weighs 6,500 pounds. Marjon was born on Feb. 20, we met him on April 20 and he was playful and adorable – and very well loved!

Giraffes:

The giraffe feeding station is open to guests. The girls enjoyed feeding lettuce to these long-necked friends.

Kangaroos

Our family loved petting the kangaroos. A knowledgeable zookeeper taught us how to pet and approach the animals safely before we entered the exhibit. This is a fun experience that all visitors are able to enjoy. We especially enjoyed seeing mothers with joeys in their pouches. 

In addition to animal encounters and feeding stations, the zoo is also home to many more animals to see and meet.

My girls loved the Koi pond.

This beautiful zoo in the heart of Kansas is a truly unforgettable experience. Thank you for the memories Tanganyika Team! We highly recommend this to KC Parent readers as a must-do for their family bucket lists!

Tip: Enter to win FREE Tickets to Tanganyika in our latest giveaway!

Book the getaway of your WILDEST dreams today!

More fun in Wichita:

• Tanganyika Wildlife Park
• Kansas Aviation Museum
• Riverfront Stadium
• Old Cowtown Museum
• Botanical Garden
• Museum of World Treasures
• Keeper of the Plains
• Wichita Art Museum
• The Ulrich Museum of Art
• The Pizza Hut Museum
• Sedgwick County Park
• Sedgwick County Zoo