A guide to the Hoge Veluwe National Park
When you’re traveling to the Netherlands, a visit to the Hoge Veluwe National Park cannot be missed. This beautiful nature reserve is the place where nature meets art and history. In this article I’ll provide a guide to the Hoge Veluwe National Park.
The Hoge Veluwe National Park
The Hoge Veluwe National Park is located between the cities of Arnhem, Ede and Apeldoorn. It’s a magnificent nature park with 5.400 hectares of forest, heathlands, grasslands and sand drifts. It’s a must visit for every nature lover. Red deers, mouflons and wild boars are some of wildlife which live in the Hoge Veluwe National Park.
The park is ideal for outdoor activities, but you can also find here some impressive museums, like the Kröller-Müller Museum and the Museonder, which is an underground nature museum.
How to reach the Hoge Veluwe National Park
If you’re planning a visit to the Hoge Veluwe National Park, it’s good to know how to reach the park and to have some practical information. The park has three entrances: Hoenderloo, Otterlo and Schaarsbergen. The entrance of Otterlo is most of the time the busiest, so it’s recommended to go to the entrance of Hoenderloo or Schaarsbergen. The addresses are as follows:
Entrance in Otterlo
Houtkampweg 9
6731 AV
Entrance in Hoenderloo
Houtkampweg 13
7352 TC
Entrance in Schaarsbergen
Koningsweg 17
6816 TC
You can either park your car outside of the entrance and buy a parking ticket at the entrance or you can take your car into the park (against a surcharge) and park it at the center, ‘Jachthuis Sint Hubertus’ or at the Kröller-Müller Museum.
The Hoge Veluwe National Park also is perfect to reach by public transport. It depends on where your train arrives on which bus you need to take and to which entrance of the park. A more detailed description of the possibilities can be found on the official website. We always recommend to use the 9292 app to plan your trip by public transport.
Entrance fees and opening hours
The Hoge Veluwe National Park isn’t open 24/7, so it’s good to prepare on what time to go during the day. Below you can find a schedule of the opening hours and the entrance fees which are valid at this moment (at time of writing, 27-May-2021), but please take a look on the official website if you’d like to have up-to-date information.
| January to March | 09:00 AM until 06:00 PM |
| April | 08:00 AM until 08:00 PM |
| May | 08:00 AM until 09:00 PM |
| June and July | 08:00 AM until 10:00 PM |
| August | 08:00 AM until 09:00 PM |
| September | 09:00 AM until 08:00 PM |
| October | 09:00 AM until 07:00 PM |
| November and December | 09:00 AM until 06:00 PM |
| Children under 6 years old | Free entrance |
| Children from 6 to 13 years old | € 5,55 |
| Adults + children 13 years and older | € 11,10 |
| Car / motorhome / motorcycle | € 7,85 |
| Parking outside the entrances | € 3,95 |
Hiking and biking
If you’d like, you can buy a map of the park at the entrance which makes it easier to find your way in the Hoge Veluwe National Park. The best way to explore the park, is by walking or biking. On the map you can find several routes and you can easily find which route fits your wishes. Of course it’s also possible to create your own route.
Fun thing to know: the national park provides an amount of 1.800 bicycles which you can use for free. There are bicycles provided at the entrances, but also at the “center”, the Kröller-Müller Museum and the Jachthuis Sint Hubertus. At the information desk at the Museonder, you can get several biking routes. There are 40 kilometers of cycle paths in the park, so lots of possibilities!
Museums in the Hoge Veluwe National Park
Kröller-Müller Museum
The Kröller-Müller Museum is an art museum which is most well-known for its big art collection of Vincent van Gogh. It features approximately 90 paintings and 180 drawings from Van Gogh. The museum also provides paintings of, among others, Claude Monet, Georges Seurat, Pablo Picasso and Piet Mondriaan.
The museum has started in 1938 after Helene Kröller-Müller collected her 11.500 art works with her husband Anton Kröller between 1907 and 1922.
Another highlight of the Kröller-Müller Museum probably is the beautiful and large sculpture garden. In an area of 25 hectares you can find a diversity of modern sculptures, made by, among others, Auguste Rodin, Henry Moore, Jean Dubuffet and Joep van Lieshout.
If you’d like to visit the Kröller-Müller, you have to buy an entrance ticket next to the entrance ticket for the Hoge Veluwe National Park. More information, also about the opening hours, can be found on the official website of the museum.
Museonder
The Museonder is an underground nature museum where you learn more about everything the earth and his nature, what’s living under the earth’s surface and what has lived in the past. It’s a really fun and educational museum for the whole family!
Currently, the Museonder is closed due to Covid-19, but normally the opening hours are from 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM. A visit to the Museonder is included in the entrance price of the Hoge Veluwe National Park.
Jachthuis Sint Hubertus
The ‘Jachthuis Sint Hubertus’ is the former country retreat of the couple Kröller-Müller and it’s also one of the most important building of the Netherlands. It’s designed by the famous architect Hendrikus Petrus Berlage.
You can book a guided tour through the building, which takes around 45 minutes and costs € 5,- per person (€ 2,50 for children between the age of 6 and 13). Making a reservation beforehand on the website is obligated. Take into account that the building is located inside the park, so you have to buy an entrance ticket for the park + for the guided tour.
Food and drinks
In the center of the Hoge Veluwe National Park (at the Margant square), you can find ‘Park Paviljoen’, where you can enjoy something to eat and/or drink. Besides the restaurant, you can also find a park shop in the same building. Here you also have the option to buy a picnic package, we you can consume at a place of preference inside the park.
There’s also the ‘Theekoepel’ located at Jachthuis Sint Hubertus, where you can buy a snack or something to drink.
More about the Hoge Veluwe National Park
All year round, there are activities organized in the Hoge Veluwe National Park. Of course not at this moment due to Covid-19, but normally there are activities and events happening in the park. Would you like to see the options? Take a look here.
Have you paid a visit to the Hoge Veluwe National Park already? Or is it on your bucket list?
Author: Tamara
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