Zaitz Woods Nature Preserve

Zaitz Woods Nature Preserve is another one of those places I would not have found if it had not been for geocaching. The kiddos wanted to go geocaching so I looked for nearby places where some were located and the Zaitz Woods Nature Preserve had some. Finding new places is one of the reasons why I love geocaching. You can find out more about geocaching and check out the other reasons why I love it in an earlier blog post here. The thing about the Zaitz Woods Preserve is that we have passed by it many times because our 6 year old had soccer games on the fields right by the preserve. It was fun to finally check it out.

The Zaitz Woods Nature Preserve is located in West Windsor, NJ and very close to where we live. The preserve has a small parking area. There are no bathrooms but we know there are some just down the street where the soccer fields are. There is a kiosk by the parking area that has a map of the trails.

Our plan was to find the geocaches along the red and white trail markers. The trail is well marked. There are some benches along the route that the kids liked to jump from.

It is a nice flat trail and goes through the forest. It's hard to believe that we are in the middle of the suburbs from this pic.

There are a couple of wooden plank bridges but no water to cross over because the area is pretty dry right now.

We had fun searching for the two geocaches we came across near but off of the trail. This was one of them.

Along the trail it was also nice to see informational signs like the one below. The signs covered the ecosystems of the field, the stream, the vernal pools, the canopy, and the forest floor. It looks like it was a project by a local eagle scout group. They did a great job.

The loop we did was a little over a mile. These trails are great for kids because they are very short. We did not even explore the other two trails. We will definitely be back because there are more geocaches to find in the preserve that we didn't have time for. 

Are there places nearby that you see often but haven't been to?