Looking for a unique road trip destination? How about an indoor polar landscape where penguins roam all around you? The Polk Penguin Conservation Center is now open and is described as “the most extraordinary center for penguins in the world”.
The center, closed for water repairs since 2019, reopened last February. The 33,000 square foot facility features a 326,000 gallon, 25 foot deep water area where you can watch penguins swim, explore and thrive.
An underwater gallery with massive windows, tunnels, and glass floors offers stunning views of the penguins above, around, and below you.
Similar Items
This charming Airbnb cabin near Toronto is surrounded by playful alpacas
The Toronto Zoo will be transformed into a yurt hotel and restaurants surrounded by animals
“Inspired by Sir Ernest Shackleton’s legendary Antarctic expedition and epic crossing of the Drake Passage, the Penguin Center evokes the harsh and visceral ice world of the Southern Continent, recreated in a 360-degree 4-D entry experience which includes blasts of polar air and sea fog,” the facility’s website states.
“An interesting video and sound feature called projection mapping depicts a phenomenon known as an iceberg calving – one of nature’s most spectacular spectacles where icebergs split apart and send huge waterfalls of ice crashing down in the sea.”
There are over 75 penguins that call this place home, including king, rockhopper, macaroni, gentoo, and chinstrap penguins.
The conservation center is located in the Detroit Zoo in Michigan. Which, believe it or not, is only a four-hour drive from Toronto.
With Quebec next door and the cottage country a few hours north, we Ontarians are no strangers to road trips and this one is definitely one of them.
POLK PENGUIN CONSERVATION CENTER
Or: Royal Oak, MI 48067
Comments are closed.