Keukenhof is a thirty-two hectare bulb garden in Lisse, planted afresh every autumn with around seven million bulbs and open for roughly eight weeks each spring. That short season is the single most important thing to know about it: for ten months of the year there is nothing to visit. Inside, it is a landscaped park of themed borders, pavilions and flower shows rather than a working bulb field, which surprises people expecting the striped fields they have seen in photographs. Those fields are outside the fence, in the farmland around Lisse and Noordwijkerhout.
Thirty-two hectares of planted borders, winding paths and water, laid out on the grounds of a fifteenth-century estate. The planting is designed in layers so that something is in flower across the whole season rather than all at once.
Arrive at opening or after four. The middle of the day is when the coaches and the school groups overlap, and the paths are narrow.
Official siteSeveral indoor pavilions run changing shows through the season, including orchids, roses and the big tulip displays. They are also where you go when Dutch spring weather does what it usually does.
Save at least one pavilion for the middle of your visit. It is the only real shelter in the park.
Official siteThe blocks of solid colour in every photograph of the Netherlands are commercial bulb fields, not the garden. They surround Lisse and run north toward Noordwijkerhout, and they are best seen from a bike or a car on the roads between the villages.
Fields are a working crop. Stay on the road or the verge, never walk between the rows, and remember the flowers are cut once the bulb has what it needs, so a field in bloom one week is bare the next.
Daffodils tend to lead, tulips follow, and hyacinths sit in between. Mid-April is the safest bet for tulips in an average year, but the bloom moves with the winter that preceded it and no date is guaranteed.
If tulips specifically are the point of your trip, book the middle two weeks of April and accept that nature does not take instructions.
Official siteTickets go on sale months ahead and the park sells parking and transport as combinations. The gate is the slowest part of the day for anyone who has not bought online.
Buy the ticket before you travel. In peak weeks the car park fills and the bus is genuinely the better option.
Official siteNo tours listed yet for Keukenhof. Check back soon.
Official sources, so you can check today's hours and prices rather than trusting ours. All open in a new tab.
From 18 March to 9 May 2027, daily from 8am to 7pm, with last entry at 6.15pm. Tickets go on sale several months ahead through the park's own site. The garden is closed for the rest of the year.
Mid-April is the most reliable window in an average year, with daffodils earlier and hyacinths in between. The planting is layered so there is always something in flower during the season, but the exact tulip peak shifts with the winter and cannot be promised in advance.
Not inside the park. Keukenhof is a landscaped garden. The commercial bulb fields are in the farmland around Lisse and Noordwijkerhout, and the usual way to see them is by bicycle from the park entrance.
Most visitors take a train to Schiphol or Leiden Centraal and a Keukenhof Express bus from there, often on a combination ticket that includes entry. By car it is about forty minutes, with paid parking at the park that fills up in peak weeks.
Yes, on request. The garden is only open for about eight weeks a year, so a Keukenhof day is not something we sell from a fixed schedule. Tell us your dates on the contact page and we will arrange a guide and build the day around the garden and the bulb region. Our private tours in nearby Leiden and Haarlem are bookable online all year.
