This past weekend, Dusten and I ventured out towards Montgomery, Alabama for our Saturday day trip. Our original plan was to visit the sunflower fields in the morning, explore downtown Montgomery for lunch, and then hit the drive-thru safari on our way back to Enterprise. However, neither Dusten or myself are morning people, so we got off to a late start and I feared the lighting would be too harsh for photos at the sunflower fields. We changed our itinerary at the last minute, and unfortunately didn’t get to explore downtown on this trip.

ALABAMA SAFARI PARK

If you’re an animal lover, you will absolutely love this place. They have a pretty good selection of animals freely roaming the park. You pay your admission fee and buy your buckets of food as soon as you drive into the park, there is a gift shop with restrooms and a walk about area that you can park and see, or you can continue to the safari and visit after you’re done. The park is 350 acres with a 3-mile driving course and the animals are pretty eager to visit your car for food. Dusten and I bought 2 grain buckets and it was the perfect amount for both of us to enjoy feeding them. I’ve been to one other safari park in Texas, and I feel like the one in Alabama had a more diverse group of animals that were a bit friendlier and eager to visit. We were able to feed a ton of animals, including zebras, camels, water buffalos, and more.

After the safari, we stopped in the gift shop to purchase lettuce to feed the giraffes and headed to the walk about area. The main attraction to the walk about area is the giraffe feeding, but they also have a petting zoo with goats and pigs, a bird feeding area, and an Australian outback area with kangaroos. The goats and giraffes were very friendly and eager to eat, however it was pretty hot the day we went so the birds and all of the outback animals retreated to shade far from the viewing areas.

a few notes:

-Admission is per person rather than per vehicle here. It’s about $22 per adult, and $17 per child. Additionally, the animal food will cost about $5 per bucket of grain or lettuce.

-If you’re interested in visiting the petting zoo, save some of your grain from the safari to feed the goats with.

-If you have a pickup truck, people are allowed to sit in the bed of the truck, as long as they remain seated the entire time.

-The animals seemed very friendly and the park rangers were constantly driving around, but keep in mind these are still wild animals, so there’s always the small chance that they could damage your car. The park tells you to start honking if there’s an emergency and the rangers will drive out to assist.

AUTAUGA COUNTY SUNFLOWER FIELD

I absolutely love sunflowers, so this place was definitely on my Alabama bucket list. It’s a huge 30 acre family farm (two 15 acre fields across the road from each other) filled with GIANT sunflowers. The best part, the couple who owns the farm are so kind they let people visit for free. It’s free to visit and take photos with your phone or personal camera, if you want to buy some of the flowers you can borrow a pair of clippers and a bucket and cut your own for $1 each, and a professional photoshoot will only cost you $20 for access. You’ll need to bring cash though as there isn’t any service out there. They also have little canopies set up where they sell shirts, cold drinks, fresh fruit, and boiled peanuts.

Masks were not required when we went, but it’s such a large farm that it’s reallyyy easy to keep your distance from everyone; which is also a plus as you can easily get some photos without other people in them as well.

A few notes:

-For the best lighting, try to go in the morning or late afternoon.

-I would definitely recommend wearing sneakers or some type of closed shoe. As a reminder, you’re on a farm, so you’re walking through dirt.

-If you’re allergic to bees, this may not be the place for you. None of them bothered us during our visit, but a lot of the flowers had bees on them when we went.