Main Street Wishes: Wilderness Explorers in Animal Kingdom

If you have been to Animal Kingdom with little kids, chances are you have see the Wilderness Explorers stops throughout the park. If not, then you have probably seen some cast members dressed as a Wilderness Explorer and wondered why they are dressed like that. It is a great, free, activity that they offer throughout the whole park. My daughter and her friends had a lot of fun doing this on our Animal Kingdom day. She actually still loves flipping through the handbook, which is why it looks a little worn.

You should be able to get a Wilderness Explorers Handbook at the Wilderness Explorers headquarters (on the bridge between the Oasis and Discovery Island). The cast member will explain how it works, but it is pretty straight forward. The handbook has all the directions for what needs to be done to receive each badge. Once you have your handbook, it's time to get started!

The first thing you will want to do is fill out the membership card on the first page. Just fill in your child's name to pledge that they will uphold the Wilderness Explorers Motto "A Wilderness Explorer is a friend to all, be it plants or fish or tiny mole." So cute! Now your child is an official Wilderness Explorer, so it's time to explore!

There is no certain pattern that you need to follow to get the badges, whenever you see a Wilderness Explorers sign you can stop and earn a badge. If you are at Animal Kingdom specifically to get all the badges then I would take a look at the map in the beginning of the handbook and figure out where you want to start.

The map at the beginning of the handbook with

all of the Wilderness Explorer stops.

The Wilderness Explorers challenges are easy to spot along the park. There will be a sign with a picture of the badge awarded at that spot. The handbook will have the directions you need in order to be awarded a badge at each stop. Once you have completed the steps the cast member will give you the badge to stick on the correct page. The kids had so much fun collecting the badges!

Each badge page has a certain spot for the badges

to be placed once you have earned them.

Not only is this fun, but it gives the kids information about endangered species, conservation, and more. So the kids get to learn a little something while they are having fun. Disney knows how to make learning fun. Each page will have information about the badge to be earned and will include some educational information about the subject that the badge is for. For instance, one of the badges is a Tiger Badge and on that page it explains that tigers are endangered because of the loss of their habitat. There is a code word that the kids have to find and the code word is one of the main causes of the loss of the habitat for the tigers. It brings awareness to both children and adults in a fun way, but still gets the importance of the point across.

The Tiger Badge raises awareness

about the endangered animal.

The Animal Call Badge teaches kids how

animals communicate with each other.

The African Culture Badge encourages kids to learn

about other countries and cultures.

The Ham Radio Badge teaches kids how to

receive a message on a ham radio.

The Birding Badge teaches kids how to identify birds.

The Tracking Badge teaches kids how animals can

be tracked in the wild.

I love that this program encourages the kids to learn and if you have a competitive child they will most likely have to finish all the badges in the book (there are 31 badges total). Think of all the great things they will learn by earning all those badges! My daughter and her friends definitely took away a lot of new things they learned from earning their badges and they are excited to go back and earn more! To be honest, I'm excited to do this program again too! It's interesting, fun, and the cast members are awesome. All the cast members that we encountered during our time exploring were so helpful, informative, and fun! I think we are going to set aside one day just to do this program. You can easily spend a day going around to earn all the badges and I think it would make for a pretty fun day!

This is the ranking page. If you get

all the badges then you are a Senior

Wilderness Explorer.

Another page from the handbook

that encourages kids to explore history.

Here is a video I found on Youtube giving you a Wilderness Explorer tip. There are five videos in total and they are all pretty funny. This is lesson #1:

So if you are looking for something fun and different to do during your Animal Kingdom day, I definitely recommend this program. It is so much fun and the kids love it! Plus, they get to learn some new things while they explore. Disney is big on helping animals and conservation, this is a great way for them to raise awareness. The handbook has a link on the ranking page, Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund. We had a blast helping the kids earn their badges and we will definitely do some more exploring on our next Animal Kingdom visit.

Thanks for reading!

Liz ⁰O⁰