Netherlands · North Holland
Plan your Amsterdam trip
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01Your itinerary
02Where to stay
The Jordaan
Best for first-timers and walkersAmsterdam's most beloved neighbourhood — tilting canal houses, hidden courtyard gardens, the Nine Streets shopping grid, and the city's best concentration of brown cafés, all a flat ten-minute walk from Centraal Station.
A converted canal house on Prinsengracht
Steep original staircases are part of the charm; look for one with a lift if stairs are a concern, since older buildings rarely retrofit one.
€€€Nine Streets Inn
Small, family-run properties tucked just behind the main shopping streets trade a little polish for real neighbourhood quiet at night.
€€De Pijp
Best for food-focused trips and repeat visitorsYounger, denser and better priced than the canal ring, De Pijp is where Amsterdam actually eats — Albert Cuyp Market, the city's best casual restaurants and natural wine bars, and a tram ride or a twenty-minute walk from the museum quarter.
De Pijp Boutique Hotel
The park side of De Pijp is quieter than the market streets and puts you close to the Heineken Experience and museum quarter alike.
€€Cozy Home in The Oude Pijp
Loud by day with market trade, genuinely peaceful by night — a fair swap for being steps from the city's best stroopwafels.
€€Canal Ring (Grachtengordel)
Best for a classic, central baseThe postcard address — Herengracht, Keizersgracht and Prinsengracht at their grandest, with the museum quarter close by. Central, beautiful, and priced accordingly; you are paying for the view out the window.
The Dylan Amsterdam
The southern stretch of the ring puts the Rijksmuseum and Vondelpark within a fifteen-minute walk in either direction.
€€€€Ambassade Hotel
The widest, grandest of the three main canals; expect period detail, tall windows, and a price that reflects both.
€€€Amsterdam-Noord
Best for value and a less touristy baseAcross the free ferry from Centraal, Noord trades canal-ring polish for industrial edge — NDSM's warehouses, cheaper rates, and a fifteen-minute ferry commute into the centre that most visitors never consider.
A converted warehouse loft near NDSM
You lose the postcard canal view but gain space, lower rates, and the city's most creative, least polished neighbourhood on your doorstep.
€€Affiliate notePostcardRoute is reader-supported. Some links to Booking.com (stays, flights, car hire, tickets and tours, airport transfers) are affiliate links, tracked through CJ Affiliate: if you book through them we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only recommend places we would send a friend.
03Tickets & tours
Rijksmuseum
The national museum of the Netherlands, anchored by Rembrandt's The Night Watch in the vaulted Gallery of Honour, with eight centuries of Dutch art,…
Tip Book a timed online ticket in advance and head straight for the Gallery of Honour before the tour groups arrive at ten.
Van Gogh Museum
The largest collection of Van Gogh's work anywhere, arranged chronologically so you watch his palette and his mental state shift painting by…
Tip Buy a specific entry-time ticket online days ahead; walk-up sale often sells out entirely in summer.
Anne Frank House
The actual canal house and hidden annex where Anne Frank's family hid for two years, preserved bare and unfurnished exactly as the Nazis left it.
Tip Tickets release online exactly six weeks ahead and sell out within minutes — set a calendar reminder, there is no reliable walk-up option.
Albert Cuyp Market
The Netherlands' largest daily street market, running the length of Albert Cuypstraat through De Pijp with stroopwafels made fresh on the griddle,…
Tip Come hungry and skip breakfast — a warm stroopwafel straight off the iron here beats every packaged version you'll find in a shop.
Jordaan & the Nine Streets
A tilting grid of narrow lanes and hidden hofje courtyard gardens west of the canal ring, threaded by the Negen Straatjes — nine streets of…
Tip Duck through any unmarked door with a plaque reading 'hofje' — most inner courtyard gardens are free and open to quiet visitors during the day.
NDSM Wharf
A former shipyard across the IJ in Amsterdam-Noord, now a sprawling canvas of graffiti-covered warehouses, artist studios, a floating swimming pool…
Tip The ferry from behind Centraal Station is free and takes about fifteen minutes; go on a weekend when the food stalls and flea markets are running.
Begijnhof
A hidden 14th-century courtyard of almshouses just off the busy Spui, home to Amsterdam's oldest surviving wooden house and a pocket of total silence…
Tip Enter through the unmarked door on Spui and keep your voice down — it is still a residential courtyard, not an attraction with staff.
A canal-side brown café
Not a single site but an institution: dark wood, sand or sawdust on the floor, candles at 4pm, and a jenever or a Trappist beer poured without much…
Tip Order a jenever 'oud' (aged) rather than jong if you want the rounder, more traditional Dutch style over the sharper modern gin-like version.
Day trips from Amsterdam
Keukenhof & the bulb fields
One of the world's great flower gardens, open only March through May, surrounded by the actual working tulip fields that photograph so well.
Day tripZaanse Schans
A cluster of working windmills, green wooden houses and a cheese farm just twenty minutes north by train and bus — touristy but genuine, and the…
Day tripUtrecht
A half-hour direct train to a canal city that locals will tell you is prettier than Amsterdam and far less crowded — climb the Dom Tower and wander…
Day tripEverything to do in Amsterdam
Skip-the-line tickets, guided tours and day trips, all in one place on Booking.com.
04Getting there & around
Getting around, mostly by bike
Amsterdam is a cycling city before it is anything else, and you should rent a bike on day one — not the goofy beer-bike tourist contraptions, a plain city bike from a proper rental shop like MacBike or Black Bikes.
Flights
Compare fares into Amsterdam and pick dates that suit the days you planned.
Airport transfers
Book a private or shared ride from the airport so the first evening starts at your door, not at a ticket queue.
Car hire from Amsterdam
Only worth it for day trips beyond the city — in town, the plan above works on foot and public transport.
Affiliate notePostcardRoute is reader-supported. Some links to Booking.com (stays, flights, car hire, tickets and tours, airport transfers) are affiliate links, tracked through CJ Affiliate: if you book through them we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only recommend places we would send a friend.