Ramat Gan Safari – Visitors Guide

Ramat Gan Safari has the most extensive collection of animals in the Middle East. Moreover, there are African territories with grazing herds.

Note: Check out Zoos and Aquariums in Israel‎ for additional information about animals and wildlife.

Map

The Safari is located at Hatzvi Avenue 1, Ramat Gan.

Directions for drivers: Link to Waze and Link to Google Maps
Directions for public transport: Link to Moovit

Interactive map of the area:

A short explanation of what you can find inside the Ramat Gan Geological Center. The center has two areas:

• Looking at the map above, you can see the entrance and the exit at the bottom of the diagram. The open area (orange background color), also called the African park, is where different animals walk freely. You drive in your car on paved roads and see animals around you. Part of the African area has a closed space, the lion’s habitat (top left corner).
• Inside the open area are several fenced facilities (green background color). The main ones are the zoo and the animal hospital.

Note: you can visit the animal hospital only on a dedicated tour. These tours are free but do not take place every day. Check the events schedule on the official site.

On a typical visit to the Safari, you drive through the open space. Then, leave the car near the zoo and walk inside. And after a visit to the zoo, you drive back through the open area towards the exit. You can visit the lions before or after your visit to the zoo.

If you do not have a car, you can purchase an open train ticket to take you through the open area to the zoo and back. But, since it is an open train, it will not enter the lion’s territory.

Opening Hours

Month	Sunday – Thursday	Friday and Holiday eve	Saturday and Holidays
March	09:00 – 17:00	09:00 – 16:00	08:30 – 17:00
April	09:00 – 18:00	09:00 – 16:00	08:30 – 18:00
May	09:00 – 18:00	09:00 – 16:00	08:30 – 18:00
June, July	09:00 – 20:30	09:00 – 16:00	08:30 – 20:30
August	09:00 – 21:00	09:00 – 16:00	08:30 – 21:00
September	09:00 – 18:00	09:00 – 16:00	08:30 – 18:00
October	09:00 – 16:30	09:00 – 16:00	08:30 – 18:00
November, December, January, and February	09:00 – 16:00	09:00 – 16:00	08:30 – 16:30

Notes:

• Cash registers at the entrance are closed two hours before the closure time.
• In case of bad weather, the opening hours may change.
• The lion area is open from 10:00.

Entrance Fee

Note: you can purchase tickets at the cash register on the official site. Purchasing on the website and booking time slots is cheaper and ensures entry.

Adult/Child (when purchasing at the cash register) – 99 NIS
Adult/Child (when purchasing on the official website) – 89 NIS
Pensioner/Soldier/Student – 77 NIS

A train ride through the open area (for those without a car) costs an extra 7 NIS.

Notes:

• Children under the age of two do not need tickets.
• Opening hours, entrance fees, and coupons were updated in May 2024, and in any case, before visiting, recheck the official site.
• You can rent an electric club car inside the zoo. Here is the price list.

Coupons

Usually, there are few coupons for Safari (though the number of offerings started to grow in recent years). But on multiple occasions, I was able to find discounted tickets. And the coupons reach up to 50%.

Currently available coupons:

• Credit Cards:
  • Max – 1+1 for 99 NIS
  • American Express – 1+1 for 99 NIS
• Shufersal4U – 55 NIS per ticket
• Pais – starting from 57NIS
• Couponofesh – 82 NIS per ticket
• HTZone – starting from 59 NIS
• Teachers Association – 50 NIS

You can find the complete list of organizations and unions that provide discounts here.

If you purchase discounted tickets, you must buy them beforehand (usually online) and then book your visit at the official site.

Tours

In recent years, Safari started to offer various tours (in addition to regular visits). The number of tours continually grows, and the most popular tours are:

• Safari morning tour – starts before the Safari opens to the public (usually at 7:30). During this three-hour tour, you learn and feed the animals. I have joined several of those tours and will show one later. The total ticket price is 99 NIS. Age restriction: above three years old.
• Night Safari – when the stars go out, you will embark on a guided night tour through the open African terrain and enjoy a rare opportunity to discover what the animals are doing during the night. The 2.25-hour tour costs 109 NIS and has an age restriction of above five years old.
• Midnight Safari is similar to Night Safari but takes place later (around 22:00). It is a 2.25-hour tour, and the entrance fee is 109 NIS – age restriction: above 18 years old.

Tickets for tours can be purchased on the official site. And I would suggest buying them in advance since they might run out.

Feeding

During a regular visit, you can watch an animal feeding and get a short explanation regarding those animals.

Here is the timetable:

Note: this timetable is from April 2024 and can change over time.

And now, let’s start by joining the Safari Morning Tour.

Safari Morning Tour

One of the benefits of this tour is that you start early (around 7:30). The tour starts before the Safari is open to the public while it is still not too hot. And the animals are more active. But before buying tickets, if you do not know Hebrew, check out what language the guided tour will be in (our tours were in Hebrew).

Also, note that if you plan to come without children, then you will probably be the only one 🙂

In the Open Area

Last week we attended such a tour. We started by riding the train into the open area. That is the time when they are feeding the animals.

At The Zoo

After riding the train in the open area and receiving explanations from our guide, the train entered the zoo. We received explanations about different animals and had a chance to feed them. For example, we threw fruits and vegetables to bear territory (before their door to the open area was opened).

For me, the highlight of this tour was feeding giraffes with cabbage.

There are two ways to feed a giraffe. The natural is giving food as if taken from a tree. Like in the following photo:

And the more courageous method is placing the food on your palm. But your hand will be wet with the giraffe’s saliva in that case. The instructor told us that some believe this (being licked by a giraffe) is a good sign and brings luck for the next seven years.

This mother elephant with two babies is one of my favorite photos from that Safari morning tour:

Since small elephants can not cover themselves with dust, their mother does it for them.

Though I did not see the crocodile move, we were told that this was the real thing 🙂

The morning safari tour lasted about three hours. After the tour, we could enter the Safari in our car (included in the morning tour price). So we made another round since we wanted to visit the lions.

Note: the train is open (it has no windows). Thus, it does not enter the lions’ area.

After the Tour

We entered the open space once again in our car. And these are the photos I took on our way to the lions.

When we reached the lions, it was already around 11:00 and boiling. So all lions lay in the shade:

Overall, we liked the Safari morning tour a lot. There are many advantages. The main ones are: you get a guide, you visit early while it is not too hot, and you get to feed the animals. As long as kids are happy, their parents will be delighted. The only downside is the ticket price. But, since the difference in ticket price between the morning tour and the regular visit is not significant, I am leaning towards the morning tour. If you plan to visit Safari and buy full-price tickets, consider the Safari morning tour. In my case, I purchased the tickets through a coupon, and the ticket price was 35 NIS per person (this is even cheaper than the regular entrance). So, it was worth it.

Safari Morning Tour – Three Years Later

We participated in the first Safari Morning Tour in the summer of 2014. In 2017, I had another chance to buy discounted tickets, so I did. In this part, I want to tell you about updates/changes in the tour from our February 2017 visit.

Overall, the trip was quite similar. We started our train ride in the open area and headed to the zoo. But, since we had a different guide and saw slightly different animals, we were told different things. For example, how does a baby zebra differentiate its mother from other zebras?

The form of stripes is unique, like a fingerprint. And each baby zebra knows the back stripes of his mother.

This rhino ran straight toward our train while we were next to the pond. In such cases, a jeep protects the train, and the Safari keeper enters with his vehicle between the train and the rhino.

As it turns out, rhinos do not have good vision. They mostly use their sense of smell, and this rhino probably did not see us.

For reference, here is our train:

Since we mentioned rhinos, do you know what rhino horn is made of? I thought the horn was some bone, but it is made of keratin, the same type of protein that makes up hair and fingernails.

The Parrot Story

One of the highlights (same as in the previous tour) was giraffe feeding. And after giraffe feeding, our program was different. For example, we were introduced to this parrot. As it turns out, parents bought this bird for a young girl. As that girl aged and reached 18, she went into the army. The parrot became sad, and the girl’s parents finally brought it to Safari. To this day, the parrot holds grudges, and if a woman tries to pet him, he bites (the biting is aimed only at women and not men). Parrots may live 40-50 years. So before taking a pet, consider the pet’s whole life, not the near future.

Our tour lasted a little more than three hours. We were brought by train back to the entrance and then entered Safari’s back gate with our car (this entrance is included in the tour price).

Safari Morning Tour – 2018

The morning tour was pretty much the same, but some activities differed each time. This time, we got to see the pelican and penguin feeding.

Also, Safari workers started feeding the birds in the afternoon. Thus, if you are near the birds’ area, you can see the pelican and penguin feeding at 13:45 as part of a regular visit.

After the morning tour, we returned mainly to the lions. But they were lying far away and without a clear line of sight.

Rhinos Reproduction Program

Our guide told us many people ask her how she works as an animal lover in a zoo. But Safari is not a zoo. It is a zoological center with many different programs for helping animals.

As it turns out, Safari is one of the only zoological centers in the world where rhinos reproduce. In September 2015, Safari’s 27 baby rhino was born. That increases the rhino population in zoos and zoological centers significantly. And who knows, they might release them one day into the wild.

So, I guess this is why they selected the rhino as their logo and symbol.

The bottom line has not changed. If you love animals (and since you read this post, you probably do), then go for it (especially if you can get cheap tickets). We loved it!

Regular Visit at Ramat Gan Safari

I have visited Ramat Gan’s Safari many times before, but when I saw a deal offering a ticket for less than 30 NIS (while the usual ticket price was 67 NIS), I could not resist.

Here are several photos from the open area.

An interesting fact about Wildebeests is that they often graze in mixed herds with zebra. It gives heightened awareness of potential predators. Gnus are also alert to the warning signals emitted by other animals, such as baboons.

While driving through the African area, Safari workers ask people to close their windows. They are especially strict about this in lion territory. Also, please do not feed the animals!

As I always suggest, start early. Early in the morning, it is cooler, and the animals are more active. We entered the Safari at around 9:30, and it was already quite warm. Thus, I changed the usual visiting order. First, we visited the open area, drove to the lions, and went to the zoo.

But though I was hoping to see some actions, the lions were already in standard position, lying:

We exited the lion’s area and drove to the zoo.

In the open area, we saw a group of Arabian oryx. Looking at the Arabian oryx from the side, you see only one horn. I read theories that suggested that Arabian oryx were the base for unicorns (since when looking from a distance, you can see only one horn).

The Arabian oryx was extinct in the wild by the early 1970s, but was saved in zoos and private preserves, and was reintroduced into the wild starting in 1980.
In 1986, the Arabian oryx was classified as endangered on the IUCN Red List, and in 2011, it was the first animal to revert to vulnerable status after previously being listed as extinct in the wild.

Source: Wikipedia

The first animal we saw at the zoo was the kangaroo. And I thought it was hotter in Australia 😉

If you like kangaroos, check out Gan Garoo – Australian Park in Nir David.

We arrived just for the feeding time of the bats. Interestingly, I noticed that bats do everything upside down. They rest upside down and eat upside down. But there is one thing they do not do upside down. Do you know what it is? Take a look at the following photo:

One of the differences that occurred in Safari was the reorganization of the monkey area. They are changing older fences and water barriers to walls with windows. The Baboon area is one example of this change:

Somali wild ass is a subspecies of the African wild ass, and this species is believed to be the ancestor of the domestic donkey.

When the Giraffes finished eating the leaves they were given, one went to the zookeeper and asked for more. Here they are together:

Another change inside the safari zoo is a new playground for children. The downside is that after several minutes there, your shoes will be full of sand.

We finished visiting the zoo and drove through the safari area (towards the exit).

When to Visit Ramat Gan Safari?

It is always lovely to visit Ramat Gan Safari, especially on colder days. But on one occasion, it was not one of such days. And it seems that the turtle does not mind the heat.

Note: did you know that there are Nile softshell turtles in Israel? See Turtle Bridge at Alexander River for additional details.

But it is hot for the elephant. Thus, this zoo worker decided to cool them down (it is hard to see, but the baby elephant is hiding behind his mother):

Most of the other animals were hiding in the shade, and there was often no clear line of sight. Thus, though you can visit Safari all year round, I would advise considering the weather and going during the colder days and less hot hours of the day.

Life is tough, especially on a hot day 😉

So the bottom line is that you should come either early or late (not during midday) and prefer cooler days.

Note: I photographed most of the images in this article using Tamron 200-500mm on D610.

Basic Info

Avraham Krinitzi, Ramat Gan’s mayor, wanted to establish a park around the city. In 1951, he established Ramat Gan National Park. Two years later, a small petting corner was created in the park.

Today, the Safari extends over an area of around 1000 dunams. It has the most extensive collection of animals in the Middle East and is unique worldwide because of the vast herds that graze in the African park.

“Safari” originates from Swahili and means “a journey.” The idea is to invite visitors to join the journey and follow animals in the African Savannah.

Summary

Ramat Gan Safari is an excellent attraction for the whole family and is probably a must-see for animal lovers. Moreover, check out available tours if you want to upgrade your visit. I would recommend the Safari Morning Tour. I attended this tour several times and enjoyed each one. Moreover, my family, including my wife, kids, and parents, also liked it.

The only downside is the entrance fee. You can search for coupons to decrease the cost (see the coupons section above).

Have you ever visited Ramat Gan Safari? Let us know in the comments below.

That’s all for today, and I’ll see you in future travels!

Stay Tuned!

For additional attractions nearby, see Tel Aviv.

Additional Resources

Here are several resources that I created to help travelers:

• Trip Planner with Attractions and Itineraries is the page that will help you create your perfect travel route.
• What is the Best Time to visit Israel? To answer this question, we will consider the weather, prices, holidays, festivals, and more.
• Information and Tips for Tourists to Israel will answer the most common questions tourists have about Israel (including safety, passports, weather, currency, tipping, electricity, and much more).
• Israel National Parks and Nature Reserves include a complete list, top ten, map, tickets (Israel Pass, Matmon, combo), and campsites.
• If you are looking for things to do, here are the pages for Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Sea Of Galilee, Akko (Acre), Eilat, Nazareth, Safed (Tzfat), and Makhtesh Ramon.