Beekse Bergen Tickets: Prices, Safaris & Visiting Tips

Inside Beekse Bergen: what you’re paying for

Safaripark Beekse Bergen in Hilvarenbeek, just south-east of Tilburg in North Brabant, is the Netherlands’ best-known safari park. More than 150 animal species live on open plains and in themed areas, and instead of walking past enclosures, you choose how to travel through them. The park belongs to the Beekse Bergen leisure area run by Libéma, alongside holiday resorts and the Speelland play park.

The selling point is that one Beekse Bergen ticket includes four safaris:

• Car safari — drive your own car along the route through the large animal areas, at your own pace. You stay inside the car, and it’s the part of the day most children remember.
• Bus safari — a guided ride where a ranger explains what you’re seeing. Good if you arrived by public transport or want commentary.
• Boat safari — a ranger-led trip on the water, with a different perspective on the animals along the shore.
• Walking safari — the on-foot route through the park, where you get closest to many of the smaller species.

Expect classic savanna animals — giraffes, rhinos and lions are on the car route — plus cheetahs, primates such as ring-tailed lemurs, and birds. Exactly which animals you see from the car depends on the day and the weather; animals are free to roam their areas.

Who it suits: families with children from toddlers upwards, couples who like wildlife photography, and anyone who wants a zoo day that feels less like a zoo. Thrill-seekers will be bored — there are no rides in the Safaripark. For that, combine it with a theme park nearby.

Timing is everything

Beekse Bergen is busiest on sunny weekends, during Dutch and Belgian school holidays and on public holidays such as Ascension Day and Whit Monday. The quietest pleasant days are weekdays in May, June and September, outside the holidays. Dutch summer holidays are staggered by region, so check the dates for the southern region (and for Belgium, just across the border) before you pick a summer day. Spring is the best time for young animals.

On a typical day the park opens at 10:00. Be there at opening and do the car safari first, while the animals are most active and the route is quiet. By the afternoon the car route is much busier, the drive takes longer, and the car safari closes half an hour before the park. Then park the car and do the walking route, fitting the bus and boat safaris into their departure times.

Opening hours change with the season, so check the calendar for your date — in late October the park was open 10:00–17:00.

Winter and the Light Safari: the Safaripark stays open all year, and cold, clear weekdays from November to February are the emptiest days of all. From 26 November to 28 February, the park also runs the Light Safari, an evening route along an illuminated path through nine themed worlds. It has its own tickets and website, so don’t assume a day ticket covers it.

Rain plan: the car and bus safaris keep you dry, so a showery day is less of a problem here than at a walking zoo. Swap the order: do the walking safari in the dry spells and save the car route for when it rains.

Insider tip: Write down the bus and boat safari departure times as soon as you arrive, and plan the car and walking safaris around them. The boat and bus are the parts of the day with a fixed timetable — miss one and you may wait a long time for the next.

A sample day that works: car safari at 10:00 (allow an hour or more on a busy day), lunch at the park, then the walking route in the early afternoon with the boat and bus slotted in at their departure times. Families with young children can end with Speelland in summer.

How to save on tickets

• Buy online. At the time of checking, online tickets for ages 12+ started at about €28.50 versus €32.50 at the box office, and for ages 3–11 at €26.50 versus €30.50. Online prices are “from” prices, so they can vary by date.
• Watch for seasonal online offers. In autumn, the park was running a limited-time €8 discount on online tickets.
• Under 3s go free, so babies and toddlers cost nothing.
• Season ticket. Families who live within an hour or so can cover Safaripark, Speelland or both with a season ticket; it pays off quickly with repeat visits.
• Combi-deal. In summer, the Safaripark + Speelland combination online is cheaper than buying both separately — worth it with children who need a water-and-play break after a morning of animals.
• Bring the parking cost into your budget. A parking token is €9.50; arriving by bus avoids it.

On Tiqets, Safaripark Beekse Bergen tickets were listed from €29.50 at the time of checking, rated 4.5★ from 250 reviews. The official online price can be slightly lower, so compare before you book.

Getting there without the hassle

The Safaripark’s address is Beekse Bergen 1, 5081 NJ Hilvarenbeek.

• By car: the park is about 10 minutes from Tilburg and within easy reach of Breda, Eindhoven and ’s-Hertogenbosch. Use the official route planner and allow for a queue at the car park on busy mornings.
• By public transport from the Netherlands: take the train to Tilburg Centraal, then bus 142 (towards Hilvarenbeek) or 143 (to Reusel via Hilvarenbeek) to the Safaripark stop.
• From Belgium: take the train to Turnhout, then bus 45 to Tilburg, and change to the 142 or 143.

From Amsterdam, the drive takes roughly an hour and a half; from Antwerp, about an hour. Eindhoven Airport is the closest airport, roughly half an hour away by car.

If you arrive by bus, you can still do the bus, boat and walking safaris — only the car safari needs your own car.

Make it a trip

Beekse Bergen sits in the middle of one of Europe’s busiest theme-park regions:

• Efteling in Kaatsheuvel, the Netherlands’ biggest theme park, is about half an hour’s drive away — the classic two-day Brabant combination.
• Bobbejaanland in Lichtaart, Belgium, is less than an hour south for a thrill-ride day.
• Stay overnight at the Safari Resort, Lake Resort or Safari Hotel next to the park to skip the morning drive and be among the first cars on the safari route when the gates open.

Want a city zoo instead? See ARTIS in Amsterdam. Find more ideas on our Netherlands destinations hub and compare other wildlife parks on the zoos and aquariums hub.