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I love bioparks
I recently visited Albuquerque and spent almost a full day at their botanical gardens. It was awesome and made realize how much I love bioparks.
Of all the attractions a city may have, they always delight and never leave me conflicted like I feel at zoos and aquariums.
So I ask the people of Tides: where are the best bio parks and what makes them great?
The Singapore Botanic Gardens (official site / wiki) are really great and recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It's a beautiful garden, clean and well maintained, with an incredible diversity of plants and environments. There are several large fields for playing and picnicking, one of which has a symphony stage in the middle of a pond where they often perform free concerts. Of particular note is the National Orchid Garden within the main gardens, containing over 1,500 species and 3,000 hybrids on display.
Also in Singapore is the Gardens by the Bay (official site / wiki) located along the waterfront. Large outdoor gardens, events and performances, food, and two huge conservatories - the "Cloud Forest" modeling a tropical mountain with a 35' waterfall and several levels of bridge walkways, and the "Flower Dome" with a range of habitats and a central section with a frequently changing whimsical theme.
I'd add that the Botanic Gardens are massive. Took me a full day to cover the entire thing by power walking, will likely need multiple days for a leisurely stroll.
There's an indoor area at the Orchid Garden that's a showcase of plants that live in higher altitudes, it's kept very cold and a great respite from the outdoor humidity.
What a coincidence, this was just announced:
Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay ranked third-best attraction in the world in Tripadvisor awards
Note that it's not "best garden" or similar niche, it's "best attraction" period. First and second were The Royal Yacht Britannia in Edinburgh, United Kingdom, and La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain.
The BBC expresses doubt: Is this really the best tourist attraction in the world? I’ll trust Betteridge's law of headlines to answer that question. I’m sure all of the places on TripAdvisor’s list are great, but are the gardens in Singapore better than, say, the Grand Canyon? Machu Picchu? The Pyramids of Giza? Petra? Maybe they’re using a different definition of “attraction” than I would, and certainly a different definition of “best,” but I feel like there’s a whole scale factor not being accounted for here.
(Which isn’t a slight on the Singapore gardens or the Britannia, La Sagrada Familia, et al. More like I’m just pointing out the absurdity of a 1-dimensional ranking like this.)
I’ll just say that the Grand Canyon, in my experience, is pretty “meh”. Obviously any list is going to draw many varied views and squabbling over definitions.
For the canyon: I’ve been a few times, only to the rim, both south and north sides. Never been IN it (though I’ve been rafting down the river further up by Lees Ferry).
At the rim, I mostly think “yep, looks like the pictures”. And if I want to get a different view, I have to walk a few miles for something that pretty much looks the same.
There is no “human scale”. It’s truly massive, which is wild, but the effect wears off pretty quick.
There are many other attractions where exploration yields more. Walking around a corner contains more mystery. Visually, but also just in terms of “look, more stuff to learn about”.
Large things are cool, but size is pretty low in importance. Like, I just don’t care about the largest ball of twine.
...perhaps other folks' experiences vary, but both giant sequoia national park and muir woods are tough to beat...
TripAdvisor rankings are always random bullshit in any given location, so I am forced to imagine this is the global equivalent.
The Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs comes to mind first. It's a pretty large area and I've only seen part of it, and I've wanted to go back ever since. It's full of rock formations and native plants, with criss-crossing trails everywhere, and it's good for short visits as you pass through (like I did) or longer explorations.
Closer to me, one of the Kansas City suburbs has a beautiful Arboretum and Botanical Garden. My wife and I have been there several times (always on free admission days) and enjoyed it every time - it's where I proposed! The American midwest is full of natural areas that get overlooked in favor of mountains and coasts, and I think that's a shame.
What other attractions similar to this does Kansas City offer? If a person has just a day or two and nothing else to do.
It won't qualify as "similar to this" but I recently learned about The Rabbit hOle and personally that put Kansas City on my list of cool places to check out. Between that and City Museum in St. Louis, the state of Missouri's got more than its share of quirky immersive art attractions.
Powell Gardens has also been mentioned here, I haven't visited but it's the only other garden in the area I've actually heard people talk about.
There's several fantastic museums in the area, including the Nelson-Adkins Museum of Art and the WWI Museum and Memorial. The WWI Museum is also near Crown Center, which is a shopping complex that includes an aquarium and the Hallmark visitors center.
Worked in Overland Park for almost 20yrs yet somehow never made it to the Arboretum =(
I remember going to Powell Gardens in MO, which is roughly an hour southeast of Kansas City. Think the last time I went there was in college with a girlfriend, but I always enjoyed it, even as a kid.
GotG looks cool as as Park/ semi-wilderness! Are there manicured botanical garden portions as well?
The garden in Kansas looks great!
Hi! Ive been to GotG a good few times, there's not really any manicured garden areas like (I think) youre looking for. There's lots of open space with wild grass and flowers and such, but most of the pathed area is focused on the big huge rocks or for hiking.
I only saw semi-wild areas with trails, but my visit was brief. Going by the founding statement when the land was donated to the city, I doubt there's anything very manicured at all.
If you ever make your way to Australia, one of my favorites is the Children's Garden, attached to the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne. It was designed as a playground, except that the plants themselves serve as the playground equipment. Although it's for kids, it's still really interesting for adults because everything is planted around the idea of exploring freely and getting lost in a surreal environment. The rest of the botanical garden is great, too, but the Children's Garden is my favorite.
It's been such a success that it's inspired a lot of other places in Australia to incorporate plants more heavily in their playgrounds. For example, a small town near me designed a densely forested public playground and waterpark, designed around winding trails and 'rooms' to discover. Even though it's very popular (with both kids and adults), it still feels really private and wild due to the dense planting.
My very favorite garden I've ever visited is the botanical garden in San Francisco, though.
The botanical garden in Golden Gate Park in SF is very lovely. To be honest though it’s slightly diminished by the fact that it’s in an already gorgeous park with tons of interesting (manmade) nature. I highly recommend both, but most of the time I just prefer to wander the park.
Longwood Gardens about 45 minutes from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is the one I am familiar with. It’s supposedly highly regarded, but I don’t really know any others besides a trip to the New York Botanical Gardens during the holidays once which was not an ideal time to visit and enjoy its splendor. It’s been awhile since I’ve been to LG but from my recollection I loved how all the different climates were replicated, giving each room a different sort of plant vibe. The architecture and landscaping is also quite stunning, making for amazing photographs without much difficulty.
As it happens, I'll be visiting the Fredrick Meijer Gardens and Sculptural Park this coming weekend. I haven't been to this one yet, and I'm quite looking forward to it since it's the real beginning of spring here. Sadly, it's one of those privately funded vanity projects of the morbidly wealthy, which also means substantial admission charges ($25+ USD for entry).
If you haven't seen the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Coral Gables (near Miami), Florida, it's a great day trip. There's a broad selection of specimens across multiple tropical biomes (aquatic, desert, etc.), including cycads, orchids, and spectacular rarities like the Jade Vine. The vistas are well designed for viewing at distance, as ecological vignettes, and in close view of individual plants. If you've got kids, the butterfly garden will enchant them, and there's a reasonably priced restaurant on the grounds. At various times of the year, local exotic tropical fruits are available for sale, there's a Mango Festival with hundreds of varieties. Even the gift shop has some extraordinary finds. There's always something in bloom, the placement of specimens is elegant, there are permanent and rotating sculpture installations. Even in the hottest months, shady jungle grottoes make it tolerable.
If you're visiting Nashville, Tennessee, Cheekwood Estate and Gardens has lovely landscape architecture with well-chosen sculpture installations, both classical and modern. The last time I was there, the museum and art gallery on the grounds was a perfect respite from a rainy day.
Gotta second Meijer Gardens, it is a beautiful park, it is privately funded and by a terrible evil family, yet $25 is absolutely worth the price. There is so much to do and see there. I am a big fan of the shade garden, and of course the Japanese Garden as well. If you have kids it is an even better stop as the childrens garden is one of the coolest
I'm a fan of outdoor installations of Dale Chihuly's work. The Fairchild gardens I mentioned above have some nice permanent emplacements that don't encroach too badly on the natural environment. There's an exhibition starting at the Meijer gardens this weekend, though I may not pay the extra $10 to see the indoor display.
All of Table Mountain in Cape Town is effectively a giant Bio Park. If you just want to have a nice day trip, Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden is tucked into the North-Western part of the mountain facing away from the sea so it's pretty sheltered and not too bad when the wind picks up. There's a ton of endangered plants, a bonsai garden, cultural and medicinal garden, a canopy trail. And it's built in a way where the landscape gradually morphs into fully indigenous fynbos as you get closer to the mountain.
If you go further south, there's Table Mountain National Park which is more hardcore multi-day hikes and camping. But there is the Cape Point area where you can climb a mountain towards a lighthouse and wander towards the narrowest cliff-point in high winds. Great spot for bird watching, tracking down rare plants and potentially falling to your death.
But seriously, Cape Town is just a magical space for bio-tourisim. You can do all the easy tourist sites, a good week of hiking or cycle tours. You could also find a lot of landscapes from the live action One-Piece if that's you thing.
( I strongly recommend doing the hikes or biking with a local group. Partly for security, but mostly because some of these spots can get deceptively treacherous with a constant risk of wildfires, wind and mist/fog.)
Tangential, but I'm always a little surprised when people make Burque a travel destination.... I think because it seems inconvenient? Idk, but I'm glad you enjoyed the biopark (and I hope you liked other things, too).
For whatever it's worth, you can also enjoy our elephant program without (too much) guilt. Recently, Alice the Elephant took a self-guided tour around the zoo, seemed to have a lovely time, and was ushered back home in the morning with nothing more than a finger-wag from her people. No tranquilizers, no panic from anyone involved, no damage (other than the fence welds she popped). Obviously zoos are zoos, but I feel like that speaks well of the program.... she's curious, but also plenty happy going home.
(Mostly I just like finding excuses to tell that story lol)
I don't begrudge anyone their own moral lines, but the last time I went to the ABQ zoo I couldn't help but be proud of the size and state of the enclosures most of the animals have there. It's no San Diego, but watching that baby hippo being shepherded by its momma and aunties was pretty special.
The Gage Park Tropical Greenhouse is an awesome place in a beautiful park here in Hamilton, ON. Free and open to the public. Free parking. Usually not very busy. My wife and I will often go grab a nice coffee and just hang out here and enjoy it.
It's small. You could maybe spend a half day between it and walking around Gage Park. I don't know, probably not worth coming to Hamilton specifically for, but if you ever find yourself in our city, it's definitely worth visiting.
Marrakesh has a few nice gardens ;)
https://riadalkemia.com/the-secret-garden/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majorelle_Garden
I'm not sure it hits the same flavour as other suggestions here, but Eden Project in Cornwall, UK Is super cool and definitely worth a visit.
Then there is Kew Garden in London, which I'm sure is the UK's most well known botanical garden.
And for anyone visiting Oxford, there is the Oxford University Botanic Garden. What I love about this one, other than being local to me, is that it's pretty small and easy to squeeze into a day of other tourist activities.
I don’t have a ton to compare with but if you are in Vancouver, the bloedel conservatory and the van dusen botanical garden are nice.
If you are in Tokyo, the koishikawa botanical garden is something else. I’d even say it’s worth planning a trip specifically for. It dates back to 1684 and has about 800,000 samples (not a typo, for real).
I don't know that many people have a reason to visit Davis California unless they are there on university business but the Arboretum on campus extends for a hundred acres alongside the creek and has a wide variety of plants, divided by region of the world.
The plant sales held by the arboretum are a good way to find drought tolerant and California native plants.