Howletts Wildlife Park – A REVIEW

* We were gifted this visit to Howletts Wildlife Park. All opinions are our own. Read on for our REVIEW of our day out at Howletts Wildlife Park.

What is Howletts Wildlife Park?

Howletts works in conjunction with the Aspinal Foundation (who also work with Port Lympne, which is 30 minutes drive from Howletts) to aid captive breeding, education and ultimately reintroduction to the wild for the animals that live there.

Howletts has 390 animals spread over 90 acres of land. The enclosures are all huge and designed carefully to replicate their lives in the wild. We spent all day walking around the Wildlife Park, so wear comfy shoes!

How much does it cost to go to Howletts Wildlife Park?

An adult ticket cost £23.50 and a child (3-15) costs £20.00. 2 and under go free.

There are concessionary tickets and a wet weather policy is in place. For more information check out their tickets page here.

Howletts opening times 2021

Summer – 12th April until 31 October from 9:30am to 6:00pm. Last admission 4:30pm.

Winter –

Open from 9:30am to 5pm. Last admission 3:30pm.

Christmas Eve – open from 9:30am to 2pm. Last admission 1:30pm.

Boxing Day – open 10:30 to 5pm. Last admission 3pm.

Getting to Howletts Wildlife Park

Howletts Wild Animal Park is located in Bekesbourne, Kent in the South East of England, just three miles south of Canterbury. Howletts is within approximately one and a half hours’ drive of most locations in Surrey, Sussex and Essex, and is within easy reach of London. We were staying near Canterbury and it was only a 10 minutes away which was brilliant.

What animals are there at Howletts?

There are over 390 animals at Howletts Zoo and is home to Kent’s only giant anteaters, the largest herd of African elephants in the UK, and more gorillas, leopards and monkeys than any zoo in the County.

The elephants were so much fun to watch, there’s a seating area by them and we watched the elephants playing in their huge pool for ages. The Gorillas are also really fun, swinging around and acting so much like humans. There’s information by each enclosure explaining a bit about the animals, where they are as far as risk of extinction and whether or not they are likely to be able to re-homed in the wild.

We loved the lemur walk through, the lemurs were just venturing back out between rain showers and were relaxing on the branches.

There are free live talks throughout the day which as all really interesting. There is a board at the entrance with the times on so you won’t miss them.

Animals of the Ice Age at Howletts

Another really fun area is the Animals of the Ice Age woodland walk. The models were really life like and quite unbelievable! We found the information boards brilliant and both the girls were amazed that animals like that once walked the Earth.

Some of the prehistoric animals we recognised, like the Wooley Mammoth, but some of them were completely new to us and quite unbelievable!

What can I eat at Howletts Wildlife Park?

There is a wide choice of eateries at Howletts Wildlife Park, including the large Pavilion Cafe, which is by the Play Park and has lots of seating inside and out. For more information on where to eat at Howletts Wildlife Park, click here.

There was a large play area for the children to play in and burn off some energy. They really enjoyed the wooden trail that they had to navigate and all the other pieces to climb. Next to the play area was the cafe and lots of picnic tables.

There are some shops around Howletts Wildlife Park, I enjoyed looking around the one next to the Pavillion Cafe.

Summary

We had a brilliant day out at Howletts Wildlife Park, we really enjoyed how big it was and how happy the animals seemed. It also had great facilities so we could always find somewhere to sit, go to the toilet or grab a drink.

Thanks for having us Howletts! If you’d like to find out more about Howletts, Port Lympne or the Aspinal Foundation, click here.

If you’d like ideas for other days out in the UK please check out the ThinkTank Museum in Birmingham review that I did here.