The North Carolina Zoo has launched a free mobile app in English and Spanish, built to help guests navigate the largest natural-habitat zoo in the world. It was funded by a $1 million grant from the North Carolina GlaxoSmithKline Foundation.
What it does
The app carries a live in-app map with real-time wayfinding, which at this particular zoo is not a minor feature. The North Carolina Zoo is built around expansive natural habitats spread across a very large site, and the most common visitor problem there is simply knowing where you are and how far the next thing is.
The app also supports the zoo’s paperless operations goals, replacing printed maps handed out at the gate.
It is free on both Apple and Android, and the zoo encourages downloading before arriving rather than at the entrance; searching “North Carolina Zoo” in either store finds it.
The bilingual part is the point
Publishing in English and Spanish is the decision worth noting. A zoo that presents itself only in English is, in practice, a harder place to visit for a substantial share of the families in its own state, and wayfinding is exactly where that friction shows up first. Not at the ticket window, but two hours in, when somebody needs to find a restroom or work out whether there is time for the elephants.
The zoo describes the app as designed to support guests of all ages and abilities, and frames it as advancing its mission of building lifelong curiosity about wildlife and conservation.
The same zoo passed one million volunteer hours in 2026.
Worth knowing before you go
The North Carolina Zoo is an agency of the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. The app works for trip planning from home as well as on site, which is genuinely useful at a zoo this size. Deciding what you want to see before you arrive will save you more walking than any other decision you make that day.
