Travel Tips for Amsterdam and the Netherlands

We recently traveled to Amsterdam and surrounding areas like The Hague and Delft. In this video, I will share with you our travel itinerary and tips. Did you know that many people refer to the Netherlands as Holland, but “Holland” is actually not the name of the country. Holland is a smaller region in the country (it’s a former province / state) where Amsterdam is located.

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Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:56 Amsterdam history, in general
04:03 Biking
05:28 Vondelpark
06:19 Anne Frank House
07:11 Canal Tours
08:16 Museum Square
09:02 Red Light District
10:39 NDSM
12:00 Shopping on the 9 Streets
12:46 Street Markets
13:48 Taste the Food
15:00 The Hague
17:02 Delft
20:06 Closing

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Ah Okay folks we just got back from the Netherlands so I’m putting together my top list of things to do while you’re in the Netherlands first off let me just say that I think the Netherlands is like Top Choice place to go super unique the canals in Amsterdam the beauty of the

The landscape and throughout the country so I highly recommend visiting the Netherlands let’s jump right into some of the broad overview of what we should learn about the Netherlands before we dive into the actual tips of my numbered list so first looking at a map you’re going to see the Netherlands located

Just to the west of Germany just to the north of Belgium it’s also only about a 1H hour flight from London to get to the Netherlands and then zooming in further onto the map and you’re going to see the biggest city is Amsterdam that is the most most popular tourist destination

Within the country and that’s why we’re going to spend about 70% of this video about Amsterdam and then toward the end we’re going to kind of talk about some other tips of other things to do maybe it’s a road trip from Amsterdam or a train trip that only going to take you

An hour or two to get to some of these other destinations that are great places to visit as well and then some bonus footage at the end that I want to share with you so be sure to stick around so let’s dive right into the list because

My number one thing to do in the Netherlands is explore and visit Amsterdam you have to enjoy this beautiful city 165 canals around this city the most fun thing to do is just walk around these streets endless streets next to the canals throughout the city where you’re just going to get visuals like

This just to give you a bit of history there was a river still there called amsdell River just like the beer amsale they built a dam on the river and that was called the Amel Dam it has since evolved the name and now it’s called Amsterdam the dam itself was in the city

Center which is now a place called D Dam Square which is kind of the center of the tourist Zone in Amsterdam and there’s all kinds of stuff you can think of that’s kind of tourist related Madam tuo you got your different uh chain stores like H&M Armani Exchange Nike like I said the

Main tourist zone of shopping not the quink blot boutiques that we’re going to talk about later and just to go back to the map Amsterdam is kind of shaped like a horseshoe and in the center of the Horseshoe is this zone I’m talking about which is close to Dam Square and also

Within this same Center area not too far from here is the red light district that we’ll talk more about later and then as you continue to look at the map looking at this horseshoe you’ll find a river kind of at the top here is IJ River and it separates Amsterdam into North

Amsterdam and South Amsterdam and probably 995 % of what you’re going to do in Amsterdam takes place in this South part uh south of the river but number one on my list obviously explore Amsterdam walk around look at the canals look at the history of the buildings uh

Sit down at a cafe there’s tons of little restaurants and cafes ride along the canals sit there and have a bite to eat have a drink and enjoy the views check out the view that is a great way to familiarize yourself when you first get to Amsterdam and kind of get to know

The city but we’re going to then dive in deeper of kind of the subcategories of Amsterdam number two biking it’s all about the biking culture in Amsterdam and the Netherlands in general it’s crazy actually there’s bikes everywhere there’s bikes for carrying kids there’s bikes for carrying pets deliveries

There’s people who are hauling larger items there’s people who are just riding everywhere Every Which Way and in Amsterdam just so you know the biking culture is no joke they take it very seriously they actually ride very fast along little tiny streets where people are trying to walk that you’re not

Really used to if you’re from the US the bicyclist definitely have the right of way whether it’s the law or not I don’t think I don’t think it’s that way but trust me the culture is such that the bicyclist own the streets and you need

To stay out of the way we saw this bicyclist a young guy probably you know a 30-year-old guy who ran into this little old lady she was walking he was on a bike and he gets off and like screams at her for being in his way so

That’s kind kind of what you that’s the culture stay away from the bikes but don’t be afraid to actually join in we actually rented bikes for a day and uh explore the city just make sure you’re uh you’re prepared and maybe don’t go into the busiest areas with the bike and

Stay kind of with in areas where there’s more space for you to navigate and move around but definitely don’t be don’t be afraid uh get on a bicycle explore the city that way and that brings me to my number three recommendation which is go to a park called vond Del Park it’s the

Biggest park in the city and it is a beautiful Park and it’s a great place to go when you’re on a bicycle that that is one place where you can go where there’s plenty of room the wide roads that are for bikes only there’s some joggers and

Stuff as well but it’s definitely wide enough that you can be safe uh and and enjoy yourself riding around the park beautiful views there’s like water features ponds and uh Greenways and and just everything you want it’s it’s just a beautiful Park to visit for an afternoon a couple of [Applause] Hours in one area of the park there is even a famous sculpture by Picasso you can check out so overall this park is a great place to visit all right let’s move on to my number four recommendation and in no particular order it’s the Anne Frank house you most likely know a

Little about this story of the incredible young Jewish girl named Anne Frank who at age 13 started writing her famous diary to document her family’s life while in hiding from Nazi persecution when visiting this house you will see the actual hiding places and living areas of her family it’s a small

House and when visiting it’s really incredible and quite moving you really get a sense of the amazing courage of this young girl now they don’t allow photos or videos of inside the living quarters but I will show you a few photos from their website the anrank house is quite

Popular so you need to reserve tickets weeks if not months in advance you can see here it gets quite crowded and you cannot get in without the reserve tickets but it is a mustsee All right next up is number five and probably my favorite thing to do in Amsterdam the Canal tour there are many different companies that offer these tours some large boats that tend to be a little impersonal so I like the smaller boat tours a little bit better they’re

More friendly and fun in fact we loved Canal tours so much we actually took two different tours with two different companies our first was with a bigger company called Flagship Amsterdam you’ll see them because they have the bright orange shirts and signs it was perfectly fine but I really

L the smaller tour we had with those damn boat guys I can’t recommend those damn boat guys enough definitely check them out either way you’re going to learn a lot of history you’re going to meet nice people enjoy some food and drink and overall just relax while cruising around on these historic Canals this brings us to number six on my list Museum Square not too far from vond Del Park that I mentioned earlier Museum square is a large open square with several museums the largest is the Rees Museum which houses more of your your traditional classical art there is

Also the the Museum of Modern Art behind me that looks like they say it looks like a bathtub from from below there are several other museums to choose from as well but we ended up going to the van go Museum which I thought was really great and I can highly Recommend all right number seven is the famous red light district you got to check out the red light district when you’re in Amsterdam and it’s not as seedy as I guess it once was it’s actually quite touristy now and there’s regular restaurants regular bars that kind of

Thing but there is a certain area of town where you do see prostitutes in the windows and the reason they call it the red light district at night they have red lights around these windows photography and video is strictly prohibited for obvious reasons but you

Can see here I got a quick shot of this building here and this is just to show you you’ll sometimes see women um sitting there flirting with guys who pass by and they have a little curtain there and you can even see I got a little shot of this uh setup here you

Can see they’ve got the curtain they got a bed inside uh and so yes prostitution is legal it’s highly regulated I even saw a sign for a prostitution Chamber of Commerce there’s even a museum of prostitution but the point I wanted to make is that it’s a very small part of

The city so you could literally go to Amsterdam and you don’t have to even go through this area and also while I’m talking about the the red light district I might as well bring up the marijuana in Amsterdam and now nowadays it’s not really as big of a deal I guess because

It’s legal in so many places but Amsterdam does have legal marijuana they sell it in coffee shops I don’t personally partake but you have to actually go to the coffee shops to get that because they are the only authorized sellers in the city all right

So that’s a little bit about the the red light district and like I said it’s actually a whole tourist zone of town that nowadays is not really as seedy as it used to be it’s very much like regular rest resturants regular bars regular canals to walk around and all

That so that’s a little demystifying the the whole thing about the red light district all right now let’s move on to my number eight recommendation for Amsterdam and that’s part of the city called ndsm ndsm is a funky artist hipster Community across the JJ river in North

Amsterdam you have to take a ferry to get there and the ferry runs frequently at least about every half hour and you can catch the ferry right behind the main train station and you can take your bikes once you get off the ferry at ndsm you’ll see funky street art and kind of

A warehouse art Vibe one of my favorites was this incredible mural of an Frank also there at ndsm there are a few cool restaurants we found a place called pleck I believe it’s called which was super cool great food and it even had a small Beach area where people were

Relaxing and enjoying the day it would definitely be a nice place just to relax for an hour or even more we walked around a bit more we found another little restaurant called IJ ver I think it was also a fun spot with super nice people and just a fun atmosphere

Thank you so much have a nice day guys oh God and then walking a bit more we saw some more street art and then we took the ferry back to the main part of Amsterdam overall ndsm is a cool place to check out for a couple of hours it’s

A bit off the beaten path so it’s kind of fun to explore that side of the river next up it’s shopping on the nine streets this is a famous Boutique part of town you can see here that even the street signs reference the nine streets it’s really more like three streets but

Nine blocks in between the canals it’s known for its Boutique shopping this is mostly women shopping to be honest so your lady will be quite happy as was Stephanie there is also good shopping in a similar but different area of town that you may have heard of called the

Jordan area I heard a lot about Jordan through the other travel videos and it was kind of hyped up it’s really just another neighborhood with some of these quaint shops and restaurants it’s all pretty close by as you can see from that map but the point is there is a lot of

Boutique shopping to do around Amsterdam next up on the list and staying with the shopping theme you should check out the local outdoor markets we found two different outdoor markets in Amsterdam the first was the largest in the city called the Albert Coupe Street Market again I’m sure my

Pronunciation is off but you get the idea I’ll spell it for you Albert Coupe or something uh Farmers Market a bunch of other items the market goes on for several blocks you can find about everything I think it’s a daily Market situation we also found a smaller Street

Market called the we found the tin Kate Market sure that’s not how you spell it or pronounce it but that’s how you spell it tin Kate right there I’ll show you here so it’s just a street market that they have every day like Farmers Market situation and they have cheese

Fruits some uh some other Items next up is to simply try the food the Netherlands is maybe not known for its cuisine but the fact is it’s a bit like the US and it’s a Melting Pot for good food choices a variety from all over the world you don’t have to look

Very hard to find some incredible meals now there are a couple of famous local foods that I’ll point out a couple of Street Food Specialties first you have the Stroop waffle seen here it is a little flat waffle cookie treat it’s quite good it’s more of a sweet dessert type of

Food another local favorite is the hering fish this is more of an acquired taste it’s a whole herring fish that you eat with a bunch of chopped onions all over it I tried it and I was not a big fan to be honest but many people like it

This lady here is eating it I guess like you’re supposed to eat it looks yummy right some other stuff you’ll find you’ll find a lot of places that sell french fries only they don’t call them french fries I think they’re just called freets overall we had some great food

Throughout the Netherlands we even took a food and pub tour in Amsterdam and that was a great time next up we’re going to leave Amsterdam for our final few travel tips we jump in an Uber and we go about 1 hour Southwest to the beautiful and very clean city of

The ha it’s quite a bit different than Amsterdam in that it is much more subdued you feel more like a local when you’re in the ha whereas in Amsterdam it’s all tourism all the time but there’s still a lot to see and do the first thing you’ll probably notice is

The hag is the headquarters for many International embassies and international governmental organ organizations across the street from our hotel appears to be the Canadian either the embassy or maybe the residents for the Ambassador all around the hag here it’s just a fullon embassies filled with ambassadors and embassies it’s also home to the

International court of justice headquartered in the peace Palace and the international criminal court we are headed to a special event at The Ambassador residence for the US ambassador should be awesome look at us looking sharp who’s that lady we actually got a firsthand Taste Of The Diplomatic side

Of the city when we were invited by the US ambassador to visit the ambassador’s residence and then a big celebration event at the US Embassy it was pretty amazing to see such a patriotic celebration in a foreign country and to witness the close Partnerships that the US has with their Netherlands diplomatic

Counterparts it was a cool experience for sure also in the heg there are some great Treeline neighborhoods where you can walk around there’s also a shopping district and several museums like the eer Museum located in this great park with a large sculpture garden we ended up going to the marites house Museum

Situated on the side of this beautiful Lake inside the museum there is a lot of great classic art including vermier famous painting Girl With a Pearl Earring lots of other interesting art as well including a few pieces by this guy who shares my last name who knows maybe

It’s a distant relative from the 1600s all in all there’s C certainly a lot of nice things to see and do in the Ha all right it’s time for our final stop on this travel tour we’re here at our hotel in the ha and we’re getting ready to check out a town nearby called Del kind of a weird pronunciation but it’s about 15 minutes south of the hay we’re going to take a tram this morning

Or train going to get down there and uh it’s supposed to be just a really quaint cute City Del so the uh tram was about 15 to 20 minutes from downtown the ha into Del just so you know kind of a timeline maybe closer to 20 minutes but here’s an entry gate to

Del the town of Del is another must sea it’s truly a fairy tale town as soon as you step into the town it feels like you’ve stepped back into the Middle Ages and just like in Amsterdam there are picturesque canals throughout the town even more Charming if that’s possible you can check out the Town Square which has a little farmers market in the center of the square as well as many shops around the Square and everywhere you look there’s this great medieval style architecture straight out of a Harry Potter book that’s why I could resist I had to get some Drone Footage so we decided to do a boat tour someone had recommended it one of the local ladies working at a coffee shop said oh we should do a boat tour and we checked it out and it’s quite uh quite inexpensive like 12250 per person and it’s about a 45-minute little boat tour

Through the canal so we decided to sign up for it similar to the boat tours in Amsterdam you you will learn a lot of great history and it’s a nice way to familiarize yourself with the Town the next big thing about Del and what it’s really known for is the famous Del Pottery called Del blue or Royal Del we went into several pottery shops we also visited the Royal Del Museum where you will learn the history behind the pottery you can also see the pot being

Made which is quite interesting because they paint the pottery with a grayish black paint that only turns blue after the pottery goes through the firing Process so that’s a quick tour of Del we’ve got ourselves quite a few items I’ve got my backpack and everything we bought some of the the pottery so definitely recommend it it is really quite nice very quaint little village tons of stuff to see tons of shops uh so anyway now we’re just

Waiting for the tram again to get back to the hag all right that does it for my travel tips to the Netherlands leaving Amsterdam the I Amsterdam sign behind me obviously there are a lot of other things you can see and do in the Netherlands other places to go but this

Was just what we did and it ended up being a great itinerary so if you have any questions let me know in the comments below uh I can try to to answer them if you have other suggestions for other viewers be sure to put them in the comments below other than that thanks

For watching we’ll see you next Time