Do The Wild Thing

An hour west of Austin on 290 is the Exotic Resort Zoo, just a couple miles north of Johnson City. We know there are a quite a few animal-centric attractions in the area, including one down at Natural Bridge Caverns. The neat thing about the Exotic Resort is that, if you want to stay longer than a day, you can rent a cabin on the grounds for the night — and drink a glass of wine on your porch while watching zebras, kangaroos, and emus cruise by. The cabins are ... cozy and BYOF (food, that is), but they come with everything else you'd need to fake-rough it.

One word of advice, though: If you manage to rent your cabin on the damn coldest weekend of the year, when the tour tractor won't even start up, they might give you a pass for a free tour next time you're there.

Expand-o-tron for more shots, including tiny goats!