In this guide
💡 The Short Version: The Puszta horse show is a tour: a coach to Kecskemét, then a ranch at Lajosmizse for a horse show, a carriage ride and a 3-course lunch with wine. The full-day tours are £96.04 for 8 hours, and a small-group half day is £94.58 for 5 hours. Trains reach Kecskemét (1 hour 26 minutes, 2,200 HUF) and buses and trains reach Lajosmizse, but the show is at a ranch outside it. Or book a tour: Program Centrum’s Puszta horse show and countryside visitad (£96.04, 4.6 stars from 143 reviews, 8 hours) is a GetYourGuide bestseller, and Eurama’s full-day tour with lunch and showad (£96.04, 4.6 stars from 226 reviews) has the most reviews (GetYourGuide).
Without a tour
Kecskemét is a fine train trip on its own, but the show needs the tour. Fares are full adult second-class fares from menetrendek.hu.
Horses grazing on the Hungarian puszta, near Gyula. Photo: Accoramboni, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
- To Kecskemét by train: MÁV from Nyugati, 1 hour 26 minutes, 2,200 HUF each way, hourly from 03:54 to 21:59, with the same timetable on Saturdays.
- To Lajosmizse: by rail 2 hours 5 minutes for 1,490 HUF, hourly, or by Volánbusz 1 hour 14 minutes for 1,300 HUF. Both stop in the town; the tours take a coach on from Kecskemét to the ranch.
- To Bugac: by bus, 2 hours 8 minutes to 3 hours 22 minutes with a change at Kecskemét, 2,425 HUF.
- Where to start the tour: the two full-day tours meet at the Eurama office, 30 minutes before departure, and pickup is optional; the half-day tour leaves from Batthyány tér 7, by the statue of Lajos Batthyány. Budapest public transport has the M2 metro to Batthyány tér.
Tours from Budapest
All three tours go to a ranch near Lajosmizse. The full-day tours add a guided walk in Kecskemét; the half-day tour goes straight to the ranch. Prices are GetYourGuide’s lowest “from” price for one adult.
Full day with Kecskemét
From £96.04 · 4.6 stars from 143 reviews · 8 hours
Program Centrum’s Puszta tourad takes 1½ hours by coach to Kecskemét for a guided walk of an hour, 30 minutes on to the ranch at Lajosmizse, and 2¾ hours there with a welcome drink of pálinka, a carriage ride, the show and lunch. Guides work in English, German, French, Italian and Spanish. The lunch is goulash soup, Puszta-style grilled chicken with garnish, a milk pie, a glass of white wine and mineral water. Hotel pickup is optional, and the tour is not suitable for wheelchair users.
Eurama’s full day
From £96.04 · 4.6 stars from 226 reviews · 8 hours
Eurama’s full-day Puszta tourad runs the same shape: a guided hour in Kecskemét, a pálinka welcome at Lajosmizse, a carriage ride and the horse show, and a 3-course lunch with wine over 75 minutes. Guides work in English, German, Spanish, French and Italian and may be bilingual. It is not suitable for wheelchair users.
Half day, small group
From £94.58 · 4.8 stars from 19 reviews · 5 hours
The countryside ranch, horse show and lunch tourad takes up to 7 guests by van, an hour each way, to a working ranch about 60 km from the city. The programme is the horse show, a guided tour of the farm and stables with Racka sheep, grey cattle and Puli dogs, a 15-minute carriage ride, photos with the cowboys, and a lunch of goulash and strudel with one shot of pálinka. Guides work in English and German, and the tour is listed as wheelchair accessible.
Which to choose
- The half day if you do not want 8 hours: £94.58, the shorter programme and a small group.
- Program Centrum’s full day for the Kecskemét walk and the bestseller with the fixed 3-course lunch.
- Eurama’s full day for the same shape with more reviews.
What to see
Allow 5 hours for the half day and 8 hours for the full day.
The tile-decorated front of Kecskemét Town Hall. Photo: Brunner Attila, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0.
- Kecskemét. Full-day tours only · about an hour guided. A town on the Great Plain, which the full-day tours call the capital of the Puszta. The guide walks the centre, and there is time for a photo stop and free time (Eurama’s tourad).
- The ranch show at Lajosmizse. All three tours. A show with horsemen, then a carriage ride on the farm. The tours open with pálinka, the Hungarian fruit brandy, as a welcome.
- The farm and the stables. Half-day tour. Racka sheep, grey cattle and Puli dogs, animals the tour describes as found only in Hungary.
- Skip: the Kecskemét walk if you have only a morning, because the half-day tour goes straight to the ranch.
A Hungarian grey cow and her calf. Photo: Antissimo, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Practical information
- Meeting point: be at the Eurama office 30 minutes before the full-day tours, and at Batthyány tér 7 for the half day.
- Lunch: included in all three tours; extra drinks are not.
- Rail: MÁV from Nyugati runs hourly to Kecskemét, if you want to go there alone.
The Puszta is one of the day trips from Budapest. The Danube Bend is the other full-day coach trip, and Gödöllő the half-day one; Vienna and Bratislava is the longest day, and Eger the one to do by train alone. What to book before you go to Budapest has the city tickets, where to eat in Budapest covers Hungarian food, and 3 days in Budapest shows where a day out fits.
Common questions
Can you see a Puszta horse show from Budapest without a tour?
Trains and buses run to Kecskemét and Lajosmizse, but the show is at a ranch outside the town, which the tours reach by coach. MÁV from Nyugati reaches Kecskemét in 1 hour 26 minutes for 2,200 HUF each way. The tours take you on from Kecskemét to a ranch at Lajosmizse for the show, the carriage ride and lunch.
How much is a Puszta horse show tour from Budapest?
£96.04 for the two full-day tours, which take 8 hours and include a guided walk in Kecskemét, the show, a carriage ride and a 3-course lunch with wine. A half-day small-group tour is £94.58 for 5 hours, with a shorter programme and a goulash lunch.
What is included in a Puszta tour lunch?
On the Program Centrum tour, goulash soup, grilled chicken in the Puszta style with potato, rice and vegetables, a milk pie dessert, a glass of white wine and mineral water. The half-day tour serves goulash and strudel with a shot of pálinka.
Is the Puszta tour suitable for wheelchair users?
Not the two full-day tours: both list wheelchair users as not suitable. The half-day small-group tour lists itself as wheelchair accessible.
