As a San Diego Zoo bus tour driver/guide, my busiest time of the year is summer. About 40 percent of the guests who visit each day take the guided tour, and on a Saturday or Sunday in summer, that works out to around 70 tours a day! Thankfully, we have an excellent group of dedicated driver/guides to share the work. Our staff this summer includes a number of teachers, university students, year-round employees, and some folks who just thought it would be fun to work at the Zoo. We look for employees who are friendly and outgoing and have experience driving safely.

Each driver/guide gives tours, drives the Express Bus (which lets guests hop on and off at various stops along the tour route), and works at the bus depot to help guests board the tour buses. With 100 acres (40 hectares) of Zoo to visit, the double-decked bus rides are quite popular. Our tours are a great way to get an overview of the Zoo, see the plants and animals in the collection, and learn about our many conservation efforts. Each guide brings his or her own personality and unique sense of humor, so every tour is different!

On average, each driver/guide gives 3 to 4 tours a day, but as the keepers fix up exhibits and the animals move from one area to another, we never know exactly what we'll find around the next corner from one tour to the next. Sometimes it's a new baby or one of our animal ambassadors out for exercise. There's always something to discover along the bus tour route. We hope you'll join us next time you stop by for a visit.

Patti Turkle is a driver/guide at the San Diego Zoo.

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