Burgers' Zoo and Safari, Arnhem — Private Day Trip from Amsterdam

Burgers’ Zoo — walking through, not looking in

Burgers’ Zoo has been in Arnhem since 1913, and it built its reputation on something specific: large covered ecosystems that you walk through. The Bush is a tropical rainforest under glass, warm and humid, with the animals living in it around you. The Desert is a different climate again. The Ocean has a coral reef and a tunnel you walk beneath.

It changes what the day feels like. Children who lose interest at a conventional zoo after an hour tend to keep going here, because the environment itself is the attraction.

The Safari

The open savanna section is what most people picture when they hear the name — mixed African herds on open ground, watched from the edge rather than through bars. It is the part everyone photographs.

Why we drive it

Arnhem is about ninety minutes east of Amsterdam and the zoo sits outside the town, in woodland. By public transport it is a train and then a bus, which with a pushchair and a bag of spare clothes is a long morning before the day has begun.

We take you door to door, the driver waits, and the coats you shed in the rainforest hall go in the van rather than round your waist for six hours.

Worth knowing

The covered habitats are kept at their own temperatures. The rainforest is genuinely warm and humid — wear layers you can take off, and expect a camera lens to fog for the first minute.

If your group is not all young children, ask about adding the Kröller-Müller. It sits inside the Hoge Veluwe national park twenty minutes away, holds one of the largest Van Gogh collections anywhere, and you ride between the gate and the museum on the park’s free white bicycles. Few visitors know it is there.