Welcome to the Bronx Zoo's award-winning Butterfly Zone, the largest seasonal butterfly exhibit anywhere and one of the zoo's most popular. They're too busy trying to identify all the species from the pictures in the color brochure they got as they entered. Finally, we shepherd them from the giant caterpillar into the maze that tests their butterfly survival skills. Zoos, I think while watching the kids explore, should be included in every traveling family's itinerary this summer. Not only are they a welcome respite from museums and historic sites, but there's a chance for the kids to run and holler and see something unique, like the Butterfly Zone.
Zoos are increasingly interactive and a lot cheaper than a day at a theme park.
Many, in fact, will extend free admission if you're a member of your local zoo. But too often, zoo officials say they're overlooked completely by traveling families who figure they can take the kids to the zoo at home, not realizing how much exhibits vary. Zoos, for their part, may not have the budget to advertise their attractions out of the area. Even the Bronx Zoo, the country's largest urban zoo and celebrating its centennial this year, counts few tourists among the two million visitors each year that have made it the leading family attraction for those who live in the New York metropolitan area. Soon, kids will be able to sit on a similar make-believe, hollowed log to peer at the chimps on the other side of the glass partition.