A local expert's guide to seeing the most beautiful tulips in the Netherlands

Nienke Panis-Ringersma has made a career out of following the region's famous blooms. Here are her favourite ways to experience the season, from road trips to bulb picking.

Few images are as indelible as the sight of candy-coloured tulips bursting through the dark winter ground. But in the Netherlands – the world's largest exporter of the magical bloom – venerating tulips is a way of life. In the weeks leading from icy winter to spring, rows of flowers stud the country's landscape in technicolour streaks, most famously in the Bollenstreek "Bulb Region", stretching between the towns of Haarlem and Leiden, arching towards the North Sea. And with tulips come tourists; eager to experience the blooms for themselves.

Nienke Panis-Ringersma is the owner of the photography and Dutch culture blog Tulips in Holland, which now also shares its tulip photos and weekly flower updates via X, Instagram and most recently TikTok. She is a licensed national tour guide, and her husband says she eats, sleeps and dreams tulips.

We spoke to Nienke Panis-Ringersma, the lens behind the popular Dutch-based tulip photography blog, Tulips in Holland, to find the best tulip bloom experiences in the Netherlands. "People in the Netherlands are very down to earth," says Panis-Ringersma, whose images and tulip facts receive thousands of likes per month on Facebook. "They are quite used to the flower fields. You know when it's tourist season, because the roads are clogged with people on a bike who are not used to riding bikes."

Nonetheless, Panis-Ringersma adores her nation's iconic bulb flower – enough to have made it her career. "I think it's the excitement," she says. "It starts around December when we can buy tulips in the florist shops. And around the third weekend of January, we celebrate National Tulip Day. Around 300,000 tulips are placed on the museum square in Amsterdam with a beautiful backdrop of the Rijksmuseum or the Van Gogh Museum. It's the start of many tulip festivals leading up to the start of spring. It's a magical place and I love the flower, the fragrance. Every tulip is unique. There is a great story to tell." 

Here are Nienke Panis-Ringersma's favourite ways to experience tulip season in the Netherlands.

1. Best overall: Keukenhof

"So, you ask for absolutely number one place? Visit Keukenhof," says Panis-Ringersma. 

Responsible Flower Viewing

Tourists, take note; in the Netherlands, it's illegal to park near or walk through tulip fields. "Flower fields are commercial fields," says Panis-Ringersma. "You can damage crops by entering with your normal shoes, when you bring in bacteria, especially the hyacinths are very sensitive to that. And you don't want to have people over in the fields taking photos, picking flowers over there. Some tourists think that the fields are for there for them."

Established in 1949, Keukenhof Gardens is undoubtedly the most popular tulip experience in the Netherlands; its lushly landscaped "inspirational" tulip gardens and windmills drawing over a million visitors each year during its eight-week season. "Around 7 million bulbs are planted by hands, not by machine, every year," says Panis-Ringersma, whose budding love for tulips was ignited by childhood visits to Keukenhof, where her grandfather volunteered as a ticket taker. "It's the most beautiful spring garden in the world."

Visitors enjoy a wide variety of experiences at Keukenhof including picnics, flower exhibitions and didactic "whisper boat" cruises through the gardens, where contemporary art sculptures dot the grounds. But plan ahead; Keukenhof is open for just two months, usually from the first day of Spring to the first week of May, depending on the weather (in 2026, 19 March to 10 May). "The best time to go is the $1m question," says Panis-Ringersma. "It's different every year… right now we have an extremely warm winter. I think the best time to visit for this year is around the middle of April."

Website: https://keukenhof.nl/en/

Address: Stationsweg 166A 2161 AM Lisse

Contact: info@keukenhof.nl

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