Tulip Time in Holland, Michigan, is where you can find over 5 million colorful tulips annually. The tulips bloom between mid-April to mid-May. To promote this color infusion of spring, Holland celebrates the Holland Tulip Festival generally in the first two weeks of May. This year’s flowery event will be from May 4 to May 12.
History of Holland’s Tulip Time Festival
1928 the Holland City Council purchased 100,000 tulip bulbs from the Netherlands. These bulbs were planted in city parks and other areas. And tulip bulbs were made available to Holland residents for a penny apiece. In 1929, with thousands of tulips blooming, Holland invited people to come and visit for a week in May. Tulip Time became an annual event after that and emphasized Dutch costumes, wooden shoes, and tulips. Because of the festival’s popularity and national attention, the revival of old Netherlands customs and traditions was generated, making the Holland Tulip Festival a world-renowned cultural celebration.
What You Need to Know about the Holland Tulip Festival
The Holland Tulip Festival lasts eight days, usually at the beginning of May, to coincide with tulip blooming schedules. The festival has great activities throughout the whole week, but the more significant events, like parades, happen Wednesday through Saturday. Most of the larger events, including the fireworks display, are clustered on the final weekend.
Try to get there early in the morning, as parking can be a challenge. It does get super busy for the last weekend. Most of the events are easily reachable and within walking distance in the downtown area. Many events are free of charge, but others, such as visiting Windmill Island Gardens, have an entrance fee.
What to Do During the Holland Tulip Festival
Windmill Island Gardens
The Windmill Island Gardens is 36 acres of beautiful gardens, dikes, bridges, windmills, and canals that you can explore. These gardens also have one of the most extensive collections of tulips in one spot in downtown Holland. There are over 100,000 tulips planted throughout the island, and over 60,000 of them are clustered in rows by the DeZwaan. At 251 years old, the DeZwaan is the only authentic Dutch working windmill in the United States.
Expect to spend at least two hours wandering through the gardens. The cost to explore the grounds and a replica of a Dutch Inn, tour the windmill with costumed guides, listen to a street organ from Amsterdam, and browse the gift shops and cafes is $12 for adults and $6 for ages 3 to 15. If you want to see how they plant all the tulips at Windmill Island Gardens in hours, check out this video.
Centennial Park
Centennial Park was originally designed as the village marketplace. Now, it has a Veteran’s Memorial, brick pathways, tulip flowerbeds, a gazebo, a traditional Dutch fountain, and a fish pond. Here, you can take tons of selfies around your favorite color of tulips. If you have any questions about the tulips, costumed guides will be around the park during the festival to answer them.
Dutch Marktplaats
The Dutch Marktplaats is where you can find Dutch-themed gifts such as blue and white delftware, Dutch Souvenirs, hand-carved wooden shoes, and many others. The photo above shows the wooden shoe-making equipment at Veldheer Tulip Gardens. You can see many of these shoes on the Dutch dancers in the parades during the festival week.
Parades
There are three parades during Tulip Time and some of Michigan’s longest parade routes. The Muziekparade, on the last Saturday of the festival, is one of the most spectacular three hours of parade watching you can have. You will see Dutch dances by the Klompen Dancers, fire engines, clowns, bands, and floats from every fruit and vegetable festival in Michigan. Make sure you show up early to claim your spot on the sidewalk to get the best views of the parade.
Carnival and Entertainment
During the week of the Holland Tulip Festival, there are many other fun activities for you to partake in. There is a vintage baseball game, animal shows, performance art shows, music concerts, and art and quilt shows. There is a carnival for the younger kids or the young at heart. You can pick up traditional carnival treats before you head off to see more tulips.
Veldheer Tulip Garden
A side trip you must make while in Holland for Tulip Time is stopping at Veldheer Tulip Gardens. Walking around the garden is like stepping into a rainbow of vibrant and fragrant tulips. There are over 6 million tulips and 800 different varieties in this garden. The key to figuring out this garden is to get a map, and then you can match it with corresponding numbers in the flower beds to help you determine which tulip is your favorite. Then, you can order them for delivery in October for your tulip garden. And don’t forget to stop and see the Buffalo on site.
If you can’t make it here in person, you can order online.
Nelis’ Dutch Village
You can take another side trip to Nelis’ Dutch Village for family fun. This village is a reproduction of an 1800’s Dutch village with a wooden shoe factory, cheese-making, and a petting zoo. The family-owned theme park is a full-day activity, with Dutch Dancing, wooden shoe carving, rides, games, friendly farm animals, photo ops, and plenty of options for food and drinks. The admission fee is $15 online for ages three and up and $17 in person.
How to get around the Holland Tulip Festival
The easiest way to get around the Holland Tulip Festival is to drive your car to each area, whether downtown, Windmill Island Gardens, or Veldheer Tulip Gardens. There is city parking downtown so you can park and walk around the town. A Tulip Trolley can take you through Tulip Lanes, Holland’s Historic District, and the award-winning downtown with a friendly Dutch-costumed guide! Everything is close enough that you could see everything over a weekend.
Is Tulip Time Worth Visiting?
Absolutely! I have visited the Holland Tulip Festival a couple of times, and each has been wonderful. On the last trip, I flew my niece to Michigan from St.Louis, and we had a great time taking each other’s photos with the tulips. It was a fun weekend even though the weather didn’t cooperate. But the rain didn’t stop us from seeing and smelling the tulips!
Tulip Tracker
If you are interested in seeing the status of the tulips at the Windmill Island Gardens or other spots around Holland from the comfort of your home, check out their Live Cam. This is a great way to track the tulip’s progress for planning your trip or you can watch the flowers bloom from your home.
Where to Stay in Holland, Michigan
There are many places to stay when you come to Holland for the Tulip Festival. I have stayed at the Holiday Inn Express, a little out of downtown but close to Veldheer Tulip Gardens and Nelis’ Dutch Village. If you are looking for other places to stay, check out these Booking.com options.
Booking.com
How to Photograph the Tulips
Photographing flowers is one of my passions. Over the years, I have learned different techniques to get more creative while taking pictures of flowers. Here are some tips for you to get some amazing photos of tulips and any flower.
- Photograph flowers on an overcast day
- The backlight will make your flowers glow
- Watch out for the wind – you can use a piece of cardboard to block the wind
- Get closer – Use a telephoto lens to zoom in, extension tubes, close-up filter, or macro lens
- The shade will make light softer
- Use a reflector for shade – fills light in the shadows
- Avoid a cluttered background
- Use a shallow depth of field (f/4 or f/2.8)
- Make it sharp – use a tripod
- Change your point of view/perspective – Shoot flowers from underneath or behind
- Focus through another flower
- Use a fast & close-focusing lens – try a 50mm lens
- Have fun with the sun – sunburst (put flower between camera and sun)
Try a couple of these or just one at a time. On the trip I took my niece, we focused on shooting the flowers from the ground looking up. I set my camera down close to the ground and just shot. Not knowing what I took added to the excitement, but we got some amazing tulip photos.
Summary
The Holland Tulip Festival is one of my favorite spring festivals. And the last time I went, I purchased several different types of tulips for planting in my flower garden and gave some to my sister and mom. If you can visit Tulip Time, take some time to smell, photograph, and maybe buy some tulips to plant later.
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Further Reading
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