In Full Bloom
Oregon’s annual Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival is a flower lover’s nirvana.
By Bruce W. Smith
January/February 2025
Tiptoeing through more than five million tulips at full bloom, in more than 50 varieties, is unlike any other RV travel experience short of taking a spring vacation to Holland. The visual impact of seeing 40 acres of farmland literally covered in a massive rainbow array of strikingly beautiful flowers is what makes the annual Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival a must-do for RVers. The two-month-long spring festival is held on a family farm located about eight miles east of Woodburn, Oregon, off the Woodburn-Estacada Highway (Route 211).
“Tulip Fest is a country-fair-like atmosphere that encompasses 300 acres, 40 of which are our tulip fields,” said Emily Iverson, the Iverson Family Farms manager and event organizer. “This farm has been in our family since the early ’50s. But it wasn’t until the early 1970s that we started growing tulips commercially, and 10 years later we changed to ‘viewing only’ and started the Tulip Festival because of people’s fascination with walking our fields when they are in full bloom.”
Of the handful of major tulip growers in the United States, Wooden Shoe is the only one dedicated to viewing, Iverson said. The festival, which runs from late March through early May, draws more than 100,000 visitors from around the world every year.
More than 100,000 visitors from around the world walk the tulip fields during the two-month-long festival on the Iverson Family Farms property.
To help manage the crowds and keep road traffic under control, the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival requires visitors to purchase time-oriented tickets online (woodenshoe.com/events/tulip-fest) prior to arriving.
RVers are welcome, Iverson said. “We have a big gravel parking lot that can accommodate motorhomes and vehicles towing travel and fifth-wheel trailers. This is a working farm, so we don’t offer RV hookups or overnight parking. But if someone comes with an RV, oh, yeah, we’ll be able to park you.” (The surrounding Salem/Woodburn/Silverton area has a wide variety of RV parks and campgrounds.)
Once on site, visitors are free to spend the day. Walking the fields and taking videos and pictures is just one part of the visit. Adjacent to the tulip fields, kids can be entertained in the festival’s main area where rides, slides, jump tents, and other fun activities are mixed in with more than a dozen food trucks and local artisan vendor tents.
The Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival also offers free guided tours of the fields for those who would rather ride than walk, as well as steam-tractor demonstrations, nice gift shops, and a Tulip Market for purchasing fresh-cut flowers and potted bulbs. There’s also a tasting room where visitors can enjoy the fruits of the Iverson Farms’ vineyards.
One of the newer aspects of the festival are hot-air balloon rides offered by Portland Rose Balloons (portlandroseballoons.com). Early-morning risers can take an hour-long sunrise balloon ride, and tethered flights above the blooming fields run from mid-morning until late in the day. Reservations are required.
When is the best time to see the massive fields of blooming tulips? Iverson said it varies with the weather. But, in general, she noted, “The second week of April is usually when the tulips are at their peak for color and variety.” Some strains of tulips are early bloomers, other late. All are rich in color. To help make a decision about the best time to visit, the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival website has a daily blog with photos that show the “bloom status.”
Iverson noted that tickets for the Tulip Festival usually sell out days in advance of nice weekends, whereas visitors typically can purchase weekday tickets on the day of arrival. Again, no tickets are sold on-site.
What better way to celebrate spring than by experiencing the colorful, blooming showcase of flowers at the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival?
IF YOU GO
Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival
Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm
33814 S. Meridian Road
Woodburn, OR 97071
woodenshoe.com
The festival typically runs from late March to early May, depending on the blooms. Festival tickets must be purchased online. Tickets for other activities are also available, including wine tours, farm tours, sunrise access, season passes, wooden-shoe-making classes, and more.
The post In Full Bloom appeared first on Family RVing Magazine.
Source: https://familyrvingmag.com/2025/01/01/in-full-bloom/
