Hulkensteijnsebos, Zeewolde

Hulkensteijnsebos is about a 25 minute drive from Almere, or 15 minutes from Zeewolde. It is a huge walking area with at least 2 off leash spots along the Slingerweg, which runs around the area.

The first thing we did was park near the camping/glamping site De Parel where an app told us we could start an off leash tour. However it led us into a field and a cafe, where the owner came out and informed us that the tour we were looking for was no longer there. Good start…

It seems there are only about 2 or 3 official entrances to the walking area, so as instructed by the cafe owner, we drove back up the road and found a small parking spot next to a bridge with a gate into the forest. It wasn’t so easy to find (none of the parking is signposted), you have to park up where you see a gate and check for the orange sign on the other side. There was no information at all regarding dogs on this board, so we made the decision for ourselves. There is apparently an official off leash area, I am not 100% sure if this was it, if anyone knows better then let me know!

This is not one of your tidy, easy to follow parks. Behind the gate there is a battered concrete pathway which simply takes you down a straight path to a road at the other end. Anything else off the concrete path and into the woody areas is not well walked, and in some spots it is a bit of a guessing game to know whether you really are on a pathway, but that just made it a very interesting sniffing ground for our four-legged companion!

We did not manage to find a circular route, at the end of one of the paths we came across a canal with no obvious way to continue. All in all we walked around the area for about an hour, but I am sure there are lots of other pathways you can take to extend this if you want to.

We went in August which should have been a busy time of year, but we didn’t see another soul in this area, neither dogs or people, making it very relaxed to wander around in.

There are no natural watering holes, so you do need to carry water for your pup if it is hot. But there is a lot of shade, so it was relatively cool when the rest of the country was blistering in the heat.

There are no bins anywhere for depositing rubbish or poop bags, you either carry poop back with you in the car, or – shudder – leave it where it was dropped.

In general, I found this a nice enough spot to walk around because I was in the area, but I would not make a special trip to go there.

Pros: