Connecticut Safari

Take to the trails of Stamford Museum and Nature Center’s 118 acres and you’ll see wood ducks, painted turtles and frogs. Then check out Heckscher Farm, a traditional New England farm where kids can watch workers milk goats and shear sheep. They can burn off energy at Nature’s Playground, a wooded wonderland that includes a human-size spider web, tree house with lookout tower, tubular slides and a sandbox filled with fake fossils.

Afterward, stop in Easton at Silverman’s Farm, owned by the same family since the 1920s. There, you’ll meet buffalo, llamas and longhorn cattle. You can also pick your own fresh fruit in season and purchase a homemade pie from the Farm Market before heading north and settling for the night.

Up early for a drive up to the Action Wildlife Foundation in rural Goshen. This 116-acre sanctuary is home to 350 exotic species from around the world, including potbellied pigs, Japanese sika deer, wild boars, zebras, water buffalo, reindeer and many more. You can feed some of the animals in the petting barn, hop on a hay wagon for a guided tour or drive your own vehicle through a 50-acre fenced-in preserve.

There are plenty of animals to see at Beardsley Zoo in Bridgeport, the safari’s last stop and Connecticut’s only true zoo. Here, you’ll come face to face with a Siberian tiger, an ocelot, an anaconda or a red wolf, should you choose. There’s an Amazon jungle habitat, an aviary with dozens of different kinds of exotic birds and even a carousel.