Overall: A great day out for the family to get a healthy dose of animals and nature away from the city.
Not a place to go out of your way for if you’re for tourist – but ideal for us animal-deprived Istanbullus!
There are aspects I am not so keen on like some animals being enclosed. However, as I understand these animals can no longer survive in their natural habitats and are therefore being kept here as a way to preserve their lives- at least that the view I am going with 🙂
Entrance fees and details:
They open at 9am at least during August when we visited. It was super quiet at 10am when we arrived but picked more by midday.
50TL adult, 30TL kids over 2. There are discounts for older people. Under 2 is free.
Duration of visit : 6 hours (2 adults, 2 toddlers under 4). We did 10am-16:30pm including naps, lunch and snacks.There are different sections to enjoy so you could structure your day best suited for little legs, the weather (its open and hot), and also meal times. There is enough shady areas and benches throughout for rest and picnics.
It’s divided into: Animals, Playground, Fun Activities, Outdoor Adventure Park, Restaurant. It’s not that huge – like you can get from one side to the other fairly quickly. Maps are provided at the entrance and it’s handy to pick up one to follow.
There are different areas to walk around to view animals in their respective enclosures. This took about 1.5 hours. It is stroller friendly. We got the kids out of the stroller at times so they get closer to see like the birds in the pond, or the lake. There is also an enclosed “forest” area that you can roam in – not stroller friendly but it’s not big so you can take the kids walking. we saw donkeys, deer and emus. Some animals were following us around so we didn’t spend alot of time there. There is also another area to touch animals which we didn’t visit as our friends told us it was difficult to walk around – so we skipped it.
Fun Activities: Include kiddy car rides, mini train, Ferris wheel, pony and horse rides. Theres also carnival style games like giant bow and arrow/punching. Everything is old but there is effort to maintain and we saw them cleaning out the equipment beforehand.
Food:
Inside the park, there is one self service restaurant with an option of made to order food (eg pasta, sandwiches etc) , or cook your own (mangal – barbecue meat and chicken).
There is also snacks, ice-cream, desserts and fruit available for purchase. It is slightly pricey, but expected.
There is a beautiful outdoor setting with plenty tables. You are not allowed outside food, however they did not check.
Playground: really exciting, novel play equipment like swings, climbing , tractors to sit in, basketball court and much more. You could spend alot of time here so do allocate accordingly.
How to get there: We took a taxi which was 80-90TL from Etiler (Istanbul), and it took around 35 minutes. To return, we weren’t sure whether we could get a taxi back easily and therefore booked a Progo car in advance to pick us up which was a minivan so a more comfortable ride as well.
There isn’t alot of detailed info available online on this park so I have decided to share our experience to help other families! Hope you have an enjoyable day. Please feel free to share a comment below or ask any questions from myself or the readers.
Exploring Istanbul, one outdoor place at a time,
Taskeen
@Productive_Muslim_Mom
Truly Taskeen 