What struck me most wasn’t just the scale (it’s massive, 3,700 acres of kindness and kibble), but the mood. Everyone, staff, volunteers, even the cats, seemed tuned into the same frequency: “What does this creature need to feel safe, happy, and seen?”
“Way down deep, we’re all motivated by the same urges. Cats have the courage to live by them.”
– Jim Davis
A Very Brief History
In the 1980s, a motley crew of friends from all over the world decided to dedicate their lives to saving abused, injured, and homeless animals. They turned their dream into the biggest animal sanctuary of its kind in the US, creating a safe haven for over 1600 creatures, as well as a national movement to protect shelter animals from being killed. Many of the founders still live and work at the sanctuary.
What and where is Best Friends Animal Sanctuary?
200 miles North East of Las Vegas, 300 miles South of Salt Lake City, 350 miles North of Phoenix, and 40 miles from Zion National Park, this national animal welfare organization and largest no-kill sanctuary in the US sits on 6 square miles of the spectacular red canyonland landscape of southern Utah, near the town of Kanab.
Mayim Bialik talks about Best Friends Animal Sanctuary
Best Friends is loved and supported by the likes of Charlize Theron, Mayim Bialik, Ellen DeGeneres, Moby, Bill Maher, Kelly Slater, The LA Kings, The NY Rangers, and many others.
At any given moment, there are around 1,600 residents at Best Friends – guinea pigs, bunnies, cats, dogs, pigs, goats, horses, parrots with opinions, and a few wild animals in recovery. It’s a whole kingdom of adorable misfits and miracles. Some are in and out, adopted after a little TLC. Others are lifers – too old, too quirky, too much – who get to retire in style. The place is run by hundreds of staff and a revolving cast of volunteers, all doting on animals, even those who most people would’ve given up on. But here, “unadoptable” just means “more spa days”.
The vet clinics here are top-notch. Each animal has their own custom plan: meals, meds, massages, training goals, friendship circles. Some get acupuncture. Others have dance parties. All are treated with the kind of dignity I sometimes forget to give myself. Honestly, by day two, I was eyeing the animal intake forms, wondering if I could pass for a potty-trained mutt.
But Best Friends isn’t just pampering its lucky residents, they’re working on a much bigger mission: making every shelter in the U.S. a no-kill shelter. It’s wildly ambitious, and also somehow working! They run outreach programs, partner with other shelters, teach communities how to keep pets out of the system in the first place, and they even launched the country’s first university-accredited animal services leadership program with Southern Utah University. Basically, they’re training a small army of gentle revolutionaries.
Can You Visit? For How Long?
You can, and you should! We’ve been four times, staying about three weeks each (perks of having local friends), but you can get a solid dose of sanctuary magic in just a few days.
How long to stay? Depends on what you want to do – tours, volunteering, animal sleepovers, stuffing yourself at the $5 vegan buffet (yes, the food is excellent), or hiking through red rock wonderlands. Three days is a sweet spot. A week is a gift to yourself.
Some folks we met make it an annual pilgrimage. Some come to volunteer, some leave with a new best friend, and a few just want to be surrounded by fellow animal lovers and sink their fingers into a bunny’s fur.
Check out the Schedule
To decide how much time to spend there, have a look at the Tours and Activities page, choose what areas you want to tour and/or volunteer at, check the available dates and times (not each tour runs every day and many of the activities overlap), and plan accordingly. Tours take 30 minutes to 2 hours and volunteer shifts last about 3 hours.
Try to book all activities well in advance to create your dream stay.
What is There To Do (Besides Adopt a Piglet and Rename It After Your Ex)?
Take a Tour
Start with the (free!) Grand Tour, a van ride around the sanctuary with a guide full of stories and know-how. You’ll meet animals, feed some, and learn what makes this place so special.
Then dive into more specific areas – Cat World, Dog Town, Parrot Garden, Horse Haven, Bunny House, and the charmingly named Marshall’s Piggy Paradise. Each has its own vibe, its own residents, and caretakers who genuinely love telling you about them. We took them all and they were highly personal, illuminating, and overall brilliant.
There are plenty of activities to keep you occupied, amused, and engaged at the sanctuary.
Volunteer
Choose your favorite creature kingdom and book a volunteer shift – morning (8:15–11:30) or afternoon (1:15–4). You might walk a dog, socialize with a parrot, clean bunny rooms, or take a kitten for a stroller ride. It’s hands-on, heart-filling, and oddly grounding.
Host a Sleepover
Yes, really. After volunteering in a department, you can take a dog, cat, or bunny back to your room for the night. It’s a fun way to bond and also a clever ploy to make you fall in love and adopt. (It works.)
Hang Out with Animals
Pop into Puppy Preschool, the Welcome Center, or Sinjin’s House at Cat World during open hours. You’ll always find some furry or feathery friends ready for attention. These are great options if you don’t have time to volunteer but still want to smother something with affection.
Take a Hike
The sanctuary itself sits in a red canyon full of hiking trails and wildlife – deer, coyotes, wild turkeys. And within a short drive? Zion, Bryce Canyon, Lake Powel, Coral Pink Sand Dunes. Basically, it’s nature’s greatest hits all around you.
Eat
Even though there are a couple of grocery stores and a few good restaurants in Kanab, you don’t need to leave the sanctuary to fill your belly. Smack on the middle, there’s the amazing Angel Village Cafe – $5 for a vegan buffet lunch of warm dishes (different every day), salad bar, desserts, coffee, and tea, with a terrace overlooking the gorgeous canyon.
Even if you’re not vegan, you’ll like the food. They use such good meat replacements that I wouldn’t have known I was not eating meat. The ladies and gentlemen that work at the cafe are wonderful as well, you can taste the love they put into every dish.
The Cafe is a great place to strike up a conversation with other animal lovers, meet the founders, or just quietly enjoy your lunch and coffee or tea. It’s open from 11:30 am to 1 pm. Don’t miss Thursday noon talks and presentations about goings on at the sanctuary while you have your meal.
Where Can You Stay?
The sanctuary is big. If you want to fully experience it and if you’re traveling with your own pet or plan to host a pet sleepover, your best bet is to book a stay on the property, in one of the cabins, cottages, or RV spots, or at the Best Friends Roadhouse in the charming town of Kanab a couple of miles down the road.
Best Friends Animal Sanctuary Cottages, Cabins, and Roadhouse
How Can You Help Best Friends (Beyond Throwing Money at Them)?
There are many ways to help if you’d like to get involved:
- Volunteer (there or at your local shelter)
- Adopt or foster
- Donate (money, crypto, vehicles)
- Start a fundraiser
- Sponsor an animal
- Add shelters to your will (talk about a ghost benefactor!)
- Buy supplies from their wish list
- Get your company to partner with Best Friends
- Take one of their courses or programs
- Visit. Talk about it. Spread the word.
A Quick To-Do List to Prep
Before You Leave Home:
- Book your stay
- Reserve your tours (Grand and specialty)
- Sign up for volunteer shifts
- Schedule a sleepover
- Download the Best Friends app for a self-guided tour
While You’re There:
- Do all the tours, volunteer shifts, sleepovers, and outings you’ve booked
- If you don’t have the time to volunteer and still want to play with animals, go to the Welcome Center which always has some furry friends to pet, the Puppy Preschool to play with kitties and pups, and Club Sinjins within the Cat World, to chill with cats. The animals you encounter here are adoptable.
- Visit Angel’s Rest (bring tissues)
- See the Disney barn, if you’re into vintage movie trivia
- Eat at the cafe and take in the gorgeous views
- Hike until your socks are red with canyon dust
- Befriend animals. Fall in love. Leave better.
So yes, for the love of all critters, just go! Don’t wait years like we did. You’ll leave with stories, maybe a new fur-friend, and almost definitely the desire to go back. I left part of my heart with a silky bunny named Hippo and four unforgettable pups. (Update: Hippo and his buddy Rhino have found their forever home. And yes, I cried.)
Videos
To read about another of our adventures, head over to Volunteering at the First Buffalo Dairy in Laos.
If you’re in the US and think you can’t afford to travel, have a peek at Getting started with credit card bonuses and also Travel hacking with US credit card points.
