Visiting Keukenhof, Netherlands

While I was just joking when I sent a message on my family groupchat if anyone wanted to go see the dutch tulip fields for easter, my sister was quick not to refuse the idea. So here we were, driving almost 5 hours on easter sunday to Lisse, Netherlands and spent another 4-5 hours to get back home in the evening on the same day. This is what happens if ya don’t want to spend 200$ a night just to stay in the Netherlands during peak season, but still want to be there during peak season.

What are the Keukenhof Gardens?

For all my amigos sleeping on the social media side showing you a ‘a girl’s biggest travel dream locations’, it’s a huge flower garden (I mean it’s 32 hectares and for those of you who don’t know how to visualize big numbers. Let’s put it like this, 1 hectare is a field of 100 x 100 m. That’s about the size of a football field. Now imagine 32 of them. And now tell me that is not humongeous for a simple flower garden, but I mean the Gardens of Versailles has around 800 hectares so that is unimaginably large then).

The Netherlands are famous for their tulips for good reason. They have about 800 different varieties of tulips withmore than 7 million bulbs blooming during the spring. Isn’t that crazy? Honestly, I couldn’t even recognize some of them as tulips because they were so different from your typical tulips (I swear some of them looked like roses, being so intricate). Also some of them were huge. We are talking about like trying-to-squeeze-a-dodgeball-with-a-hand kind of bulb size. There were beautifully blossoming pink cherry blossom trees too!

So was it worth to take this endlessly tiring day trip? Yes. I’m sorry but I wish I could have stayed longer. So if you did not just spontaneously decide to go to the Netherlands but planned it just slightly in advance to be able to spend more than 7 hours here, I think it would be a perfect day trip from let’s say Amsterdam.

There are playgrounds, a maze, a petting farm and even treasure hunts. So you can be sure to keep your kids entertained.

Before going, I spent quite a lot of time looking into how we should go around and whether Keukenhof is really worth it. And having been there now, I can tell you a few things you should know.

When is it best time to visit the Tulip Fields and Keukenhof?

To see the tulips in full bloom, it’s best to come in mid April. But if that doesn’t fit your schedule well, the gardens are usually open from mid March to mid May. (So not all year round sadly!) Depending on the weather and beautiful climate change, the blooming season may be different but their official website have a flowering report!

Quick Tip: To check what the flowers are like right as of the moment, just check posts on Instagram with Keukenhof as the location and you will find plenty of stories and recent posts.

As you can tell from my photos, Keukenhof was quite crowded. But I think there were a couple of factors that caused this. Factors you may want to consider if you aren’t a huge fan of crowds.

  1. Go on a weekday. People drive from all over Europe (including myself) to see the tulips in full bloom, and when is the only time they are free? Ding ding ding! You guessed it right (at least i hope so lol). Weekends. Especially easter weekend.
  2. If you, like most working people, can’t go during weekdays, go as early or as late as possible. Keukenhof is open from 8 am and the crowds will start coming in from 11 am onwards. But they will start to subside and disperse by around 4-5 pm.
  3. Unless you really want to, avoid Easter weekend and the flower parade day. I heard it is practically impossible to get through the crowds on the flower parade day.

We actually went on Easter Sunday (from 1 to 5 pm), and the crowds inside the garden were much better than I had expected. There weren’t any horrible “queues” that I saw other people talk about. We found plenty of paths and patches without people. Yes there are often people in the very back (as you can see from my photos) but it was not impossible to have photos without them. The bridges may be full, but the garden is just so huge that people can so easily disperse.

Our little dog coconut and other dogs had enough space to walk around. We did not have to carry her around everywhere.

We also did not have to wait in any line to buy our tickets. The only thing you might have to wait in line for is the bathroom but it’s again not as horrible as I had expected.

The real problem is arriving by car. Oh my god. We were stuck in traffic for more than an 1 hour probably. And it was impossible to get a parking spot (we had to keep circuling around).

Unless you are planning to arrive by car before the garden even opens and you do not want to be stuck in the traffic jam but still are going by car, I suggest to drive around the area and explore the beautiful Dutch Tulip fields (for free! well to be exact at the cost of gas but it’s more worth losing gas doing something rather than just being stuck in traffic.) and then to come back in the afternoon. I made a post about it here, so check it out!

How to get to Keukenhof?

There are plenty of options you can come by. As mentioned above, you can of course come by car (there are lots of parking spots but if you are going on a bad day, you may have to wait forever before getting one, so park further away and just walk). Going by car is great if you want to drive to the nearby tulip fields too. Parking cost is 6 EUR.

You can also come by train to the closest cities (e.g. Haarlem) and then rent a bike and explore the nearby tulip fields. You can bike along the Bloemen Route (but you can find more about this under this post). Renting a bike costs around 10 EUR.

There are even direct busses from nearby cities like Amsterdam. You can find more about on the official website. The bus tickets with the ticket inside the garden are around 30 EUR from Amsterdam for example.

How much does visiting Keukenhof cost?

The entrance ticket itself to get into the garden costs 18 EUR at the door (17 EUR online) for adults and 8 EUR for children from 4 to 17 years.

A boat trip that goes through the canals between the tulip fields is 8 EUR for an adult and 4 EUR per child.

The food courts are fairly expensive. We bought 3 bottles of water and 2 servings of french fries and paid 20 EUR. So, I suggest to bring your own food if you don’t mind it. (At least we did not have to wait in any line to get these snacks).

Luckily, Coconut is not into eating flowers. So we were all good!

Sign up for more posts and updates!

* indicates required

Published by Thanh