Oregon’s Incredibly Colorful Tulip Festival Is Worth the Drive From Boise

Whether you remember seeing it during Hannah Brown's season of The Bachelorette or in the heartfelt conversation Peter Parker has with Happy Hogan in Spider-man: Far From Home, you were blown away by that beautiful tulip field in the Netherlands. If you want to experience it for yourself, you don't have to travel overseas! 

You can find an equally impressive spread of colorful tulips blooming just seven hours from Boise at the Wooden Shoe Tulip Fest in Woodburn, Oregon. The six week festival is happening now through May 2 and gives you the opportunity to wander through 40 acres of flowers spread over two fields. Organizers expect their fields to reach peak bloom during the second and third weeks of April. According to their last field report, the field is at about 10% bloom this week.

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The festival does have a COVID-19 safety plan in place, so they've had to scale back the number of activities they offer during the weekend and on weekends this year but there's still plenty of things to see and do while you're there including hay wagon rides, a children's play area, wooden shoe making demos, a tulip train tour that stops for photo-ops and food vendors.

Beyond being able to take some killer photos there, one of the coolest things the festival offers visitors is the opportunity to book a hot air balloon ride through their network of pilots. Prices and packages vary depending on which pilot you book with.

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Similar to what we do at the Spirit of Boise Balloon Classic, the festival does offer tethered balloon rides Friday-Sunday if the weather allows. That's where the pilots will take you up high enough to enjoy the view and get a feel for what being in a hot air balloon feels like, but are still tethered to the ground. It's about a five minute experience that you can add on to your day. Adult tethered ride tickets are $20 and tickets for kids 5-11 are $10.

Due to the ongoing pandemic, tickets must be purchased online ahead of time. Individual passes for adults start at $15. You can see all of the options for tickets and car passes HERE!