Busch Gardens has a bunch of neat little areas that people may miss the first or second time around. I know this personally as we were still discovering new places on our 3rd and 4th trip. Your first time you can be understandingly distracted by the roller coasters and trying to cross marque attractions off your list. Most of these are animal attractions as the big fast rides are hard to miss for the most part. The park is essentially a circle, but it has some “nooks” that you might miss if you make the tightest circle and take the path of least resistance. Here are 4 places that you might otherwise just walk by your first time or two that you should check out:

1.The Myombe Reserve

You enter the park, go through the main plaza and then choose to go left toward Iron Gwazi or right toward Cheetah Hunt, Cobra’s Curse and Montu. If you go right your eyes will undoubtedly be drawn to Cheetah Hunt and you’ll probably miss the entrance to one of the most unique and beautiful animal exhibits in Busch Gardens, The Myombe Reserve. The entrance is right near the Turn it Up Moroccan Theater and it exits around the corner towards the Nairobi train station, it’s a quite large habitat. This pathways are also almost completely shaded, making it a great place to spend some time on a hot summer day. There are waterfalls and a bunch of amazing primates to watch with some nice picture spots. There are usually keepers around to talk to and it feels like you exited a theme park and entered an amazing zoo in this area.

2. The Serengeti Walking Trail

You can enter the walk of the Serengeti from several places including near the entrance of Cheetah Hunt, near Montu and by the Nairobi train station. You can see a bunch of the Serengeti from the train, but you’ll miss a lot of you don’t walk it including the hippos, lions and meerkats. Most of it is very well shaded making it a pleasant walk, even on a hot day.

3. The Animal Care Center

The animal care center is an indoor space that is well air conditioned and great for a hot day or during a rain storm. If you get there early in the day you may catch an animal exam, teeth cleaning or even a surgery. Later in the day you may get to interact with keepers while they prepare animal meals in the kitchen theater area. This is a great place to take a break and you never know who or what you might see on a given day.

4. The Tiger Trail

In Jungala there’s a nice indoor area to view the tigers with essentially a wall of glass elevated over the enclosure. However, if you sneak around to either side of the building there’s the easy to miss Tiger Trail. This lets you get much closer to the animals and even has a glass dome that can let you go face to face with a tiger if you’re lucky!

Honorable Mentions

Other things that are easy to miss are the Animal Connections center located near the penguin exhibit which houses the sloths and several reptiles and birds. It’s quite a ways off the main walkway and the name isn’t very descriptive to make you think it would home to so many cool animals, so it’s easy to blow right past. It’s also pretty easy to miss the bridge and fly right by the Congo area in the back of the park and miss Congo River Rapids. Although the water ride is visible from the train, not as much is visible from the main pathways.

Finally, there’s the far southwest corner of the park where the kangaroos are located that can be easily missed if you take the shortcut by the Springs Taproom to get over to Sesame Street and SheiKra. The kangaroo exhibit gives you a chance to walk among the kangaroos and maybe even pet one!

Hope this helps you on your first visit to not miss some cool things that took us several visits to find. Admittedly, we enjoyed the process of discovery and finding something new each time. However, if you’re only going for a day and you love the animals, this will help you not miss anything. None of these areas are truly “hidden”, they’re more of just a path less taken that’s not to be missed or to be sure to come back to if you bypass it the first time.