“Zoo, museum, & botanical garden all in one!”
For a half-century the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum has enchanted millions of visitors with its exhibits of live animals in astonishingly natural settings, while intriguing and instructing them with fascinating educational programs. At the same time, the Museum has gained a worldwide repute in the scientific community as an institution committed to researching and protecting the land, plants, and the animals of the Sonoran Desert Region. The mission of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is to inspire people to live in harmony with the natural world by fostering love, appreciation, and understanding of the Sonoran Desert. The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is a world-renowned zoo, natural history museum and botanical garden, all in one place! Exhibits re-create the natural landscape of the Sonoran Desert Region so realistically you find yourself eye-to-eye with mountain lions, prairie dogs, Gila monsters, and more. Within the Museum grounds, you will see more than 300 animal species and 1,200 kinds of plants. There are almost 2 miles of paths traversing 21 acres of beautiful desert.
This museum is amazing. Includes animals, botanical gardens, hiking, an aquarium, and hummingbird display. Tons of fun and lots to discover. Highly recommended!!
The museum is beautifully laid out, the only issue I had was at least 1/2 the exhibits were empty! Each exhibit had 1-3 empty. This was on a Saturday February 15, 2020. The Park was extremely busy, my thoughts are, they should give a voucher to people to come back when at least they 3/4 of the exhibits open.
Terri Foster
Chillicothe, Illinois
You get to see all the desert as to offer, right up close. The mountain lion was right behind the glass when we went through. He was amazing! We got to the museum when it opened on a Sunday morning. Highly recommended because we pretty much had the space to ourselves. The cafe was tasty as well.
This museum is great for young and old. There is so much to see and do. I would recommend calling ahead to see what day and time they will have birds of prey fly and other things for the kids to do.
Bring very comfortable shoes to wear and plenty of water.
Plenty of parking for all sizes of RV’s and trailers.
You can spend a whole day here. So plan on at least a minimum of two hours, but like I wrote, call if you want to experience more than walking around.
Note: I don’t recommend going through the pass (up a steep, narrow and very winding road) if you are bigger than a class B or pulling a big trailer.
Amazing place to stop and explore! Whole family had fun.
great place! Really gave my Louisiana kids a look at a different landscape.
I’m giving benefit of doubt with 4 star review. This Has been unusually cold March or it might have been more enjoyable. We did see about half the animals. It does have advantage of being several things in one...zoo, botanical garden and museum. If you show your AZ drivers license you get a discount. They are also an item in the Tucson Passport travel pass. Buy one full price get child free.
Make sure you get there before the 10am raptor show, it is awesome! We spent the whole day here. The food at the cafe is really good too! I was here with a 2 and 8 year old. We loved learning the cacti names and seeing the javalina!
This place is packed with things to see and do. Highlights were Desert walk and Cats Canyon.
This is a must see! Amazing place!
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Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
Hours
- Sun - Sat: 7:30 am - 5:00 pm
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Pets Allowed
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Wheelchair Accessible
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Credit Cards Accepted
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Coffee
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