Corstorphine, Edinburgh

Edinburgh Zoo With Kids: An Honest Guide

Edinburgh Zoo is a proper full-day zoo on a genuinely steep hillside. It is one of the best animal collections in the UK and one of the most tiring days out we have done with small children. Both of those things are true at once, and knowing it in advance changes the day.

What it really costs

Booked online, Edinburgh Zoo is £30 an adult and £20.60 a child aged 3 to 15. Under 3s go free. For two adults and two children that is £101.20, plus £5 to park — call it £106 before you have bought so much as a coffee.

Two things are worth knowing before you book. First, the headline prices include a voluntary 10% conservation donation. You can opt out at checkout and pay £27.25 an adult and £18.70 a child instead, which brings a family of four down to £91.90. It is your call whether to give it — the zoo is run by a conservation charity — but you should at least know it is optional rather than assume the higher number is the price.

Second, book online. Walking up on the day costs £32.50 an adult and £24.50 a child, so a family of four pays £114 instead of £101. That is £13 for not having booked.

Child prices currently carry a 15% summer discount, so check them again if you are reading this outside the summer — the figures here were taken from the zoo's own site on 31 August 2026.

The hill

This is the thing to plan around. Edinburgh Zoo is built up the side of Corstorphine Hill, and the zoo's own advice is to wear comfortable footwear. That is putting it mildly. The walk from the entrance to the top is a sustained climb, and you will do it with whatever you brought with you.

A pushchair is manageable but hard work, and you will be braking on the way back down. If your child is at the in-between stage — too heavy to carry, too young to walk a hillside — that is the hardest version of this day.

The practical fix is to go up first while everyone is fresh, then work downhill for the rest of the visit. Most people drift upwards slowly and then face the climb when the children are already tired.

How long you need

Four to six hours to do it properly. This is a full day out, not something to slot alongside anything else, and at over 2,500 animals you are not going to see all of it with young children.

Closing time moves with the season — 4pm in the depths of winter, 6pm from April to September — and last entry is an hour before that. Arriving mid-afternoon in November gives you very little day.

Some indoor enclosures open later than the zoo does and shut half an hour before it closes, so the indoor animals are a worse bet at either end of the day than the published hours suggest.

What worked with ours

The giraffes and the monkeys held our two the longest — both are enclosures where you can get close enough to watch properly rather than squint at something distant.

The thing that made the day work was letting each child pick two animals they most wanted to see, then building a route around those rather than trying to cover everything. A zoo this size punishes completionism.

Check the daily talk times when you arrive. Those are the moments the children actually remember, and they are easy to miss if you are not looking for them.

Our honest verdict

Worth it, with a caveat. If your family enjoys animals and can handle a hilly day, this is one of the best zoos in the country and the price is defensible for a full day out.

If you have a child in a pushchair or one who tires easily, go in knowing the terrain is the hard part — not the walking distance, the gradient. Plan a slower day than you think you need and you will enjoy it more.

Prices and times checked on 31 August 2026 against the venue's own website. They change — confirm on the official site before you book.

Common questions