The Wild Side of Williams, AZ

The year is 2019. I'm sitting at my dining room table, planning an epic road trip from Yellowstone all the way down to Saguaro. The goal: To visit both of those National Parks and many more in between. A highlight of the trip would undoubtedly be the Grand Canyon. I'm researching places to stay and things to do, and like so many other trip planning experiences, something catches my eye on Google Maps: Bearizona.

Immediately captured by the name, I clicked to see what this punny place was all about. It's a drive-thru wildlife park, kind of a cross between a zoo and a safari. A zoofari! The animals roam rather freely in their own spaces, set up to resemble natural habitats, as spectators drive through, hoping to get an up close and personal view. Now let's remember that in 2019, I had never seen a bear except for in zoo enclosures. This would be one step closer to seeing a bear in the wild, only it wouldn't actually be the wild, but it wouldn't be in a cage either. It sounded pretty cool to me. This way, if we were out of luck during our Yellowstone and Grand Teton visits, we'd have wildlife awaiting us at their sanctuary.

That road trip, as you may well know, was planned for 2020 and never happened. But I never forgot Bearizona. A lot has changed since then, so we weren't entirely sure if the experience would be worthwhile. Even talking to our Sedona travel activity guru Richard, he said that while Bearizona is fine, he's been to other similar places that were much better. I was torn. RV life has granted us so many incredible experiences. We've seen our fair share of wildlife, including several bears actually in their natural habitat. But, of course, Bearizona has a lot more than just bears. And we happened to be staying at a campground less than 5 minutes away, where we'd be staying for 2.5 weeks. That gave us plenty of time to explore the area. We decided to give Bearizona a go.

The drive-thru is just part of the adventure. Afterwards, there is a walking portion, similar to a normal zoo. There are also gift shops and restaurants. We have to say, the whole excursion was well organized. The signage was clear on which directions to go, what we'll see, and what safety measures we needed to take. For instance, if the area was home to bears or wolves, the rule was "windows up, doors locked." That means they can get really close! Alas, we didn't have bears or wolves come up to greet our truck, but we did have some close encounters with bison. And here we thought our first bison jam would be further north! The drive-thru also featured mountain goats, various deer, and burros.

You're allowed to circle through the driving portion as many times as you'd like, which is pretty cool if your first round is too crowded or if the animals are hiding or sleeping. We happened to go at a pretty active time of day, which you'll see in the video below. Even when the animals were laying down, few were asleep...except for this guy, who clearly hadn't gotten the memo that hibernation season is over.

Next up was the walking portion, which included raccoons, grizzly bears, porcupines, goats, javelinas, foxes, badgers, turkeys, frogs, otters, elk, bobcats, and a jaguar. We laughed at how popular the raccoon exhibit was. Being from the Northeast, raccoons are a very common sight, and so we barely stopped to see them. Granted, they were extremely playful and therefore entertaining, but we wanted to see something new...like javelinas! The javelinas had eluded us up to this point, but we finally got to see what they look like in real life. Ironically, the javelina exhibit had no spectators. Everyone in the Southwest is so used to seeing them, similar to how we're used to seeing raccoons. As we approached the exhibit, we overheard a woman walk by and say, "Oh, javelinas. They come and eat my trash every night." And that's when we realized, javelinas are the raccoons of the Southwest.

Because most of the animals were up and about, I got some fantastic footage of them running, climbing, and playing. We really lucked out. I lamented not having better camera equipment, which seems to be becoming a frequent complaint during our travels. Something to think about. Nevertheless, I will hit you with my best shots:

Over all, we're glad we visited Bearizona. While we can't compare the experience to Richard's top recommended zoos, we have been to some pretty reputable ones ourselves, like San Diego. This was a totally different experience because of the separate drive-thru and walking portions. We also were very impressed with the gift shop, a beautiful lodge-style building with every gift and souvenir you could imagine, plus decorative items, toys, and even snacks. We didn't eat at any of the restaurants or food stands, but they also looked pretty decent for being in the middle of a wildlife park. This is definitely a place where you can spend the day, or just pass through for a couple of hours. They also allow RVs!

Bearizona wasn't the only wildlife adventure we had in Williams, though. One place that Google failed to show me back in 2019 was the Grand Canyon Deer Farm, which is surprising because they were celebrating their 50th anniversary that year. We passed signs for it on our drive to our campground, and at first I thought the worst. Deer farm?! Like, for deer meat?!?! No. Deer farm, as in a petting zoo...with deer. That's a new one for me. Another place that was only a few minutes away, we tucked it in the back of our minds until a day where we were looking for something to do. Then one Thursday, we took a long lunch break and went to meet the deer.

When we arrived to the Deer Farm, we immediately noticed a North Pole vibe. Probably because they rescue reindeer among the many species. There is a sleigh out front, and inside the gift shop are tons of Christmas decorations, and the shop even smells Christmassy. Another noteworthy gift shop. In fact, Williams' gift shop game in general is impressive, which we'll talk more about in our next blog post.

After perusing the gift shop and making note of a few items we wanted to buy on our way out, we went to the counter and purchased two tickets for the petting zoo, plus a cup of feed for the deer. In addition to the deer, we would see goats, pigs, a bison, a camel, alpacas, wallabies, porcupines, birds including two peacocks, miniature horses, donkeys, elk, and zorses - which are exactly what you think they are...

Most of the animals were enclosed, but we were allowed to go into the goat pen, and many of the deer free roamed the main section of the petting zoo. Those deer knew what's what. They've become quite the little beggars, approaching all the visitors with the doe eyes, nudging us for food and trying to chew our shoelaces, jackets, zippers, and anything else they can get their mouths on. Because we had our cup of feed, a few of the deer became our best friends, following us around until we left their gated area. It wasn't until we returned after visiting the rest of the animals, that we learned the real trick to becoming revered by the whole herd: Sit down. There was a bench in the middle of their area, and sitting down probably made us less threatening to them. Over they came. Suddenly, we were in a Disney film! We quickly handed out the rest of our feed - and by quickly, I mean quickly because one of the deer knocked the entire cup out of my hand, scattering feed all over the ground. This clearly wasn't their first rodeo.

After our deer time, we stopped in to see the goats on our way out. There were also a few caged exhibits that were supposed to house some smaller animals, but most were empty...as were all the soap dispensers at the portable sinks by the exit. The animals were cute, but man, that was one messy afternoon. We left covered in dirt, slimy spit, and farm animal smell. Thankfully, the building had nice bathrooms where we could wash our hands before leaving. A memorable experience indeed.

Even though our priority for this region of Arizona was the Grand Canyon, we chose to stay in Williams to be closer to civilization. When we weren't venturing north to the canyon, we were able to enjoy fun outings right near our campground. These animal adventures were just the beginning! In the next post, we'll talk about our walk through Williams, right along historic Route 66.