A Visit to the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens in Palm Desert

Last year we made a side visit to the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway on our way to the Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival in Palm Springs.

We had such a nice time doing that that we planned another excursion to precede this year's film festival, heading to the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens bright and early on Thursday, May 10th. The zoo, established in 1970, is in the city of Palm Desert, located right next to Palm Springs.

The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens has a very large model train display near the entrance, with multiple trains running. My husband has collected this gauge train for decades so we especially enjoyed looking it over.

We arrived at the zoo near opening, in order to get in and out again before the temperature reached 100 degrees that day. Although the weather wasn't terribly hot in the morning, some of the animals were still feeling lazy, enjoying the shade!

The spacious giraffe display was especially attractive, with at least six giraffes wandering through a large area. (A new baby was born there last year!) Some of the fencing is invisible to guests which made the area even prettier.

Prospective visitors should be aware that while most of the year the zoo is open until 5:00 p.m., in the hot summer months the zoo closes at 1:30. There were signs on some exhibits indicating that a few of the animals had left for a cooler area for the summer and would return in the fall.

Also coming in the fall, according to zoo signage, will be a brand-new hippopotamus exhibit; there weren't any hippos there when we visited.

This was a very nice, well-run zoo with numerous volunteers; a zoo employee also approached us when we were looking at our map to ask if she could answer any questions. Since our visit was just a couple of weeks before I had minor knee surgery, I also appreciated the zoo's shuttle service which saves steps traveling to each of the zoo's distinct areas.

We saw most of the zoo exhibits in about three hours. It's definitely worth a visit when in the Palm Desert/Palm Springs area and makes a great side trip when attending the Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival.