Cameron Crowe’s We Bought A Zoo, starring Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, and Thomas Haden Church, hits theaters today and is based on the true story of a father who moves his two children to a dilapidated zoo which they restore to its former glory.

The movie is set in the U.S. and was filmed just outside of Los Angeles, but the real-life zoo the story is based on is actually located in Devon, U.K. The Dartmoor Zoo is now the thriving home of dozens of animals including monkeys, reindeer, cheetahs and goats. The zoo also hosts special events, like photography tours, family days, and weddings.]]> cmb 2011-12-23T13:07:07-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2011/12/2/114520/926

'Tis the season for happiness and fuzziness, and there are few things happier or fuzzier than baby animals. Since we're all about enhancing holiday travel,, here are three zoos—each drawn from a different region of the country—where you can see recently born cute things:

· Following up an adorable litter of Giant River Otters from January, the Miami Zoo announced a few weeks ago that they had two more live pups to show off. The pups are about a foot long and weigh just under a pound, and are scheduled to go on exhibit sooner rather than later. While you're at the zoo you should visit Juanpur, our favorite escaping Indian rhino.]]> Omri 2011-12-02T15:40:05-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2011/10/21/1488/8762

New Yorkers have—at best—only a couple more weeks before winter ends the possibility of outdoor fun. It's already too cold to contemplate sunbathing or anything of the sort, but there's still just barely enough time for generic outdoorsy type outings. Conveniently the Bronx Zoo choose this week to debut their one-month old baby giraffe James Marjani, who had been off-exhibit bonding with his mother until now.

The 6-foot, 100-pound baby was born on September 14, 2001, and he won't remain a baby for very long. Giraffes spend 14 months in the womb, then they drop six feet at birth, they they start walking within an hour, and then they immediately begin adding inches and pounds. Within four years James Marjani will go from his current 100 pounds to something closer to 4,000 pounds, and from his current 6 feet to somewhere around 17 feet.]]> Omri 2011-10-21T14:40:53-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2011/10/14/125519/66

It's not exactly the Bronx Zoo Cobra escape, but over the weekend the Miami Zoo's Indian Rhino Juanpur took a little stroll outside his enclosure. Apparently a zoo official had left the door unlocked (seriously) and so Juanpur—nicknamed "Johnny"—was able to bump it open and wander around.

The 4,640-pound animal enjoyed his freedom for just under half an hour before he was successfully herded back to where he lives. By all accounts he was nonchalant throughout the "incident," displaying the kind of confidence that being a two ton animal provides.

All of which is the perfect excuse for us to again point you in the direction of the Miami Zoo. The park last came up when we were doing a roundup of five things to do in South Florida, at which point we described it as one of the top zoos in the country. ]]> Omri 2011-10-14T16:19:08-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2011/10/7/14333/3332

The St. Louis Zoo went out of its way to attract park-goers this summer, from opening a new Panda Trek to hosting a summer concert series. As the summer winds down, though, they're shifting to a more basic and straightforward strategy: reminding potential visitors that there are a bunch of cute baby things on exhibit, and that people who come to the zoo can see them.

Just this week the zoo let loose their new baby lion cub "Imani," which drew exactly the kind of press that you'd expect a rambunctious lion cub to draw. She's not technically on exhibit yet—apparently this was just a supervised excursion into her future home in Big Cat Country—but some visitors still managed to catch a glimpse of the cub.

Those who weren't lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time, of course, were still able to see the zoo's Amur Leopard, Amur Tiger, Jaguar, and Snow Leopard, all in nearby exhibits along the trail.]]> Omri 2011-10-07T14:03:33-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2011/9/30/141643/684

If you think about it, our beloved San Diego Zoo doesn't really have to be good at doing all the things they do. It's true that they have one of the more ambitious social media outreach programs we've come across from any travel or conservation-oriented organization, spanning multi-platform contests, constant tweet-ups, and even the baby panda iPad app that they announced just this morning.

And it's true that they have a whole slew of special behind-the-ropes tours and special experiences on-site for guests who want to get beyond the public exhibits, which—inasmuch as they have polar bears and pandas inside—are themselves kind of awesome.

But the point is that they don't really have to do any of that, because every year the Zoo and its sister Safari Park seem to have more and more cute newborn things for guests to coo over. Given this year's crop of baby hippos, baby elephants, and baby Satanic Leaf-tailed Geckos (totally true, totally real), the two locations kind of seem to sell themselves.]]> Omri 2011-09-30T14:45:02-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2011/6/8/14350/53029

It's very easy to stereotype Ireland travel—to say nothing of Ireland itself—as a series of pubs, drunkenness, and the occasional potato farm. We know it's easy because that's almost entirely the picture that Tourism Ireland painted when they did their last social media campaign.

We wrote at the time that the image was a bit unfair, and that neither the country nor the tourists who travel there should be stereotyped. Then we highlighted Ireland, with its gorgeous scenary and summer cultural offerings, as one of the places where you should seriously consider spending your tax refund. Not to give away the ending, but not only were we were demonstrably right, but now there are numbers to prove it.

Figures came out over the weekend on Ireland's top tourism destinations. Wouldn't you know it, and despite the best efforts of frat boys everywhere, the Guinness Storehouse did not take the top stop. That was reserved for the impressive Dublin Zoo, with its 59 acres of plants and animals (by way of comparison, our beloved San Diego Zoo, a widely acknowledged global leader in conservation, clocks in at 40 acres).]]> Omri 2011-06-08T16:00:01-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/