Bears and wolves
The park's best-known residents in wide wooded enclosures.
Paebi — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Marco Vannotti — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Marco Vannotti — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Roy Egloff — CC BY-SA 4.0
They are quite different things. Zurich Zoo is large and paid (an adult ticket runs to tens of francs), with the Masoala rainforest hall, elephants and animals from every continent — the stronger choice for a full day with small children. Langenberg is entirely free, holds only Swiss species in open enclosures, and the visit is closer to a forest walk. If budget or the wish to be outdoors decides it, take Langenberg; if you want a zoo in the ordinary sense, take the other.
Yes, with caveats. The main paths take a pushchair, and free entry means you lose nothing by cutting the visit short. But two things to expect: animals may not appear, which frustrates small children, and parts of the route are steep. Prepare a child for "a forest where we look for animals" rather than a zoo with cages, and the visit goes much better.
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An open wildlife park inside a forest on the flank of the Albis ridge in the Sihl valley south of Zurich, laid out in **1869**, which makes it the oldest wildlife park in Switzerland and today the largest by area. The part that matters most to a visitor: **entry is completely free**, all year, with no ticket and no booking. Its idea differs from an ordinary zoo: no cages and no shows, but some nineteen species native — or formerly native — to Switzerland, living in wide wooded enclosures that you walk around on looping forest paths. Brown bears, wolves, lynx, elk, European bison, wild boar, Przewalski's horses and wildcats. The fair price of that freedom is that an animal may simply stay hidden in the trees — patience, and the hours just after opening or before dusk, make the difference. It is a forest walk before it is a zoo: gravel paths with some gradient, air that stays cool even in summer, and a restaurant at the entrance. The **S4** train from Zurich main station reaches Wildpark-Höfli in roughly twenty to twenty-five minutes, followed by a short walk uphill. Two hours is enough, and can be extended into the neighbouring Sihlwald forest.
The park's best-known residents in wide wooded enclosures.
Native or locally extinct animals, no tropical collection.
A shaded woodland walk that works on a hot summer day.
Wildparkstrasse 21, 8135 Langnau am Albis