Where the Highway Heads guides find animals: wild horses on two barrier islands, bison inside a city park, elk returned to a valley after a century away, free zoos, and a fish hatchery that has been raising trout since 1892.
26 stops across 19 states, taken from the Highway Heads city guides.
Alabama
The Audubon Bird Sanctuary
A 164-acre sanctuary on Dauphin Island, a resting point for many bird species migrating north from South America.
Florida
Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge
Overlaps Kennedy Space Center rather than lying next to it: the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the refuge was established by agreement as an overlay of NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center, and that the Department of the Interior manages most of the center's undeveloped portions as a refuge and national seashore.
Georgia
Phinizy Swamp Nature Park
Roughly 1,100 to 1,150 acres, depending on the source, of wetland with boardwalks and trails minutes from downtown, free and open to the public every day of the year from dawn until dusk, with alligators, river otters and great blue herons that make it feel much farther from an interstate than it actually is.
Kansas
The Quivira National Wildlife Refuge
The Quivira National Wildlife Refuge, with its address in Stafford, was established in 1955 to protect habitat for migratory waterfowl in the Central Flyway, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service describes its 22,135 acres as a combination of rare inland salt marsh and sand prairie. The agency also describes it as a safe stopover for the millions of birds that migrate through the south-central part of the state each fall.
Maryland
Assateague Island
Eight miles south of Ocean City, at the end of Route 611, the national seashore's north entrance opens onto an undeveloped barrier-island beach where wild horses roam — the calm counterpart to the Boardwalk's noise; the National Park Service says there is no public transportation to it.
Chincoteague, Virginia
A Virginia barrier-island town known for its own wild pony herd and a quieter, more residential beach-town feel. About an hour south.
Michigan
Potter Park Zoo
Potter Park Zoo describes itself as a 20 acre zoo within an 80 acre park in Lansing; Visit Lansing places the park in an old oak forest along the Red Cedar River.
Montana
ZooMontana
A 70-acre zoo built around cold-climate species — Siberian tigers, grizzlies, wolves — that also runs a research center producing wildlife contraceptive vaccines used in population management programs nationwide.
Bozeman National Fish Hatchery
Founded in 1892, one of the oldest fish hatcheries in the country, still raising trout for Montana's rivers on the edge of town.
Nebraska
Pioneers Park Nature Center
At 3201 S. Coddington Avenue in Lincoln, with free admission, bison and elk among the outdoor exhibits, and more than ten miles of trails through woodland, wetland and prairie habitats.
The Lied Jungle
A large indoor rainforest at the zoo which closes earlier than the rest of the site, especially in winter.
New Jersey
Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge
A coastal wildlife refuge with a wildlife drive, a short trip north of the city.
Cape May County Park & Zoo
Free, year-round admission to more than 550 animals across 250 species on 85 acres, inland in Cape May Court House.
New Mexico
Living Desert Zoo and Gardens State Park
A state park on a ridge in the Ocotillo Hills, with views of the Pecos River valley and the town of Carlsbad, that the state parks division describes as a native wildlife zoo with more than 40 species of animals and hundreds of species of plants native to the Chihuahuan Desert. Visitors follow a 1.3-mile roundtrip walking tour, and the state lists hours of 9 am to 5 pm with last entry into the zoo at 3:30 pm.
Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge
Wetlands 7 miles north-east of the city on the Pecos River. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service says fall migration attracts more than 26,000 lesser sandhill cranes, and that the refuge is home to what is considered one of the most diverse populations of dragonflies and damselflies in North America, with more than 100 species documented. There is no charge to visit.
New York
Aquarium of Niagara
Open since 1965 as the first inland aquarium to run entirely on artificial seawater, now home to sea lions, harbor seals and Humboldt penguins a few blocks from the falls.
North Carolina
Corolla's wild horses
Descendants of Spanish mustangs, by local telling shipwrecked here centuries ago, that still roam a protected stretch of beach north of the paved road; more than 50,000 people come to see them each week in summer.
North Dakota
North American Bison Discovery Center
Renamed the North American Bison Discovery Center in 2024, the museum states its mission as advocating for the restoration of the North American bison through education and outreach. A viewing area at the back looks out on the live herd, and White Cloud, a rare white buffalo once part of that herd, is on display inside.
Arrowwood National Wildlife Refuge
A prairie-pothole refuge north of town on the James River drainage: an unhurried afternoon of birding and driving loops. The refuge's page says waterfowl and shorebirds can be observed in great numbers during peak spring and fall migration, and notes that its Auto Tour route closes for the winter; check the refuge page for the closing date before a late-fall visit.
South Carolina
Riverbanks' sea lion habitat
A habitat modeled after San Francisco's Pier 39, part of the zoo's exhibit collection.
South Dakota
Tatanka: Story of the Bison
Kevin Costner’s bison-history museum, built around one of the world’s largest bronze sculptures — 14 bison and three Lakota riders, cast in 17 pieces — walking visitors through the relationship between the Lakota people and the bison herds that once fed the region.
Tennessee
Cataloochee Valley
A remote valley reintroduced with elk in 2001; about 200 now roam the park, and Cataloochee is still where you're most likely to see a herd grazing at dusk.
Shelby Farms Park
At about 4,500 acres, one of the largest urban parks in the country, with a herd of roughly 45 bison and a 12.5-mile trail connecting it back to Midtown.
Utah
Antelope Island
A narrow two-lane causeway out into the Great Salt Lake to an island that the state park says is home to free-ranging bison, in what it calls one of the nation’s largest and oldest public bison herds.
Washington
Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery
Free, open year-round, with salmon-viewing ponds and about five miles of trails a few minutes outside town — the visitor center runs 10am–4pm daily.
Wisconsin
Henry Vilas Zoo
One of only ten free zoos left in North America, held to free admission forever by the terms of the Vilas family’s 1904 land gift; the zoo itself opened on part of that land in 1911. 28 acres beside Lake Wingra with lions, camels and a working carousel.
