Save A Lot Of Money Seeing The Tulips

One of the annual spectacles up in the Pacific Northwest is available by heading north in April to see the amazing display of colors at one of the several tulip farms.

I mean, it’s just crazy beautiful. Such that, as breath-taking as the photos may be, they pale in comparison to what you’ll actually see with you own two eyes.

I’ve probably made the trek up that way a couple dozen times in my life. But if you’re a first-timer or it’s just been a while since you were last up in Mount Vernon, I thought I’d offer a quick collection of “how to” tips that’ll save you a ton of money.

TIP #1–Never Go on a Weekend

That’s a no-brainer for anyone who’s ever visited during Tulip season. So, what did I do? Yes, a couple of Saturdays ago, I got a 7am start which put me at the main Mount Vernon exit around 8:30. Even though the farms don’t open until 9am, there was still a line of cars backed up on the freeway–not because of the volume of traffic, but because the traffic light at the bottom of the exit was short-cycling. However, if you wait until any later in the day, you’ll find all three exits to Mount Vernon backed up on the freeway.

TIP #2–Pack Your Patience

Regardless of your best-laid plans, you’re going to be waiting. In traffic, or at the tulip farm to take a turn to grab a photo, or the gift shop or one of the food booths.

TIP #3–Wear Comfortable Shoes

You’ll be walking. And standing. And then, walking again. And if it rained within a couple of days of your visit, there will be mud. The day I was there, by the time I got to Roozengarde Farm, they were already rerouting people to park in their overflow lot. It’s free to park, but we were at least a football field away from the actual tulip fields.

TIP #4–Bring Your Own Food & Drink

During the non-tulip season, it would only take 15 minutes or so to get to a farm once you left the freeway. If you wait too long into the day, that could easily become two hours. Then, once you’ve arrived, if you wanted a hot dog or something to drink, the line could be 100 people deep.

TIP #5–Focus On The Flowers

I’ve done both types of visits. The “saunter around” style, where you’re in no hurry and you eat up a couple of hours; or, then there’s my personal favorite, the “ninja style”, where you keep moving, snap those photos as quickly as possible and one hour later, you’ve achieved your objective, and you get the heck out of Dodge. If it’s your first time or you just don’t get there that often, fine, take your time. But the bottom line truly is–we’re all just looking for photographic proof that we were there.

TIP #6–Choose A Sunny Day

The flowers are impressive no matter what the weather and we can’t always control what goes on. But if you check the forecast and you see some sunny, mid-week days coming up, pick one of those and you’ll send me a thank you tulip bouquet.

TIP #7–Check Your Tires Before You Leave

Oh, there won’t be any special challenges to your tires. But I had a right rear tire with a slow leak that I had to keep refilling. I knew I eventually had to do something about it. So, on that fateful Tulip Saturday, I did get up there before the tulip farm opened, and there just so happened to be a Les Schwab tire store on the way. So, I thought I would stop by and ask if they could take a look at the tire. They found a nail in it, didn’t have any matching tires and highly recommended replacing all four since they were originals on a 4-year-old car. Add siping and an alignment they also recommended and the next thing you know, my tulip pre-game show cost me $871.

I was thinking, “Heck, for that kind of money, I could have flown to Holland and seen the tulips there!” But I checked airfares and the lowest flight I could find to the Netherlands was $958, which would make roundtrip $1716. I had only spent $871, so I saved $845! Plus, I didn’t have to pay for hotels or food, so when you break it down like that, it was quite a deal.