Amsterdam is a city people arrive in with a fixed picture in their head, and that picture is usually about fifteen years out of date. The canal ring is a UNESCO World Heritage site of 165 canals and roughly 1,500 bridges; it is also a place where the rules on where you can smoke, drink, photograph and sleep have changed substantially since 2023. AmsterdamTourism.org exists to close that gap — to describe the city as it works now, in enough detail that you can plan around it.
Why we built another Amsterdam guide
Search for almost anything about visiting Amsterdam and you will find the same eight attractions listed in the same order, with opening hours that were correct in 2019 and ticket advice that ignores the fact that the Anne Frank House has sold nothing at the door since 2018. Meanwhile the questions people actually have — whether the I amsterdam City Card is worth it for a three-day trip, what the 12.5% tourist tax adds to a hotel bill, whether Zaanse Schans is worth half a day or is a photo stop — go unanswered or get answered in a paragraph.
This site is organised around those questions instead of around a list of sights. There are currently more than 130 guides across twelve subject areas, and each one is written to be the last page you need to open on that particular problem.
What the site covers
- Things to do — museums, canals, markets and the things worth booking weeks ahead versus the things you can walk into.
- Where to stay — the practical differences between Jordaan, De Pijp, Oud-West, Oud-Zuid and the Centrum, and what each one costs.
- Neighbourhoods — what a district is actually like to walk around, including De Wallen after the 2023–24 reforms.
- Getting around — trams, the metro, OVpay and contactless, ferries, and the honest answer on whether you should rent a bike.
- Food and drink — rijsttafel, brown cafés, Albert Cuyp and the Foodhallen, cheap eats, and eating well as a vegan.
- Day trips — Haarlem, Utrecht, Delft, The Hague, Zaanse Schans and the tulip fields, with the train fares and journey times.
- Trip planning — how many days you need, what to book and when, and what a realistic daily budget looks like.
- Seasonal guides — King’s Day, Amsterdam Dance Event, tulip season, the light festival and Amsterdam in the rain.
- Shopping — the Nine Streets, markets, Dutch design and what is worth carrying home.
- Culture and history — the Golden Age, the war years, Dutch painting and how the canal ring came to be built.
- For every traveller — families, solo visitors, accessible Amsterdam, LGBTQ+ Amsterdam and travellers on a tight budget.
- Practical information — laws, safety, tipping, tap water, plugs, pharmacies and what to do when something goes wrong.
How a guide gets written
Every article starts with a specific question rather than a keyword. We work out what a visitor is really trying to decide, then answer that decision first and give the supporting detail underneath. Prices, opening times, fares and travel durations are taken from primary sources — NS and GVB for transport, the museums’ own booking pages for tickets, the municipality and the Dutch police for rules and safety — and we link to those sources so you can check them yourself. Where a number is likely to move, we say what it was and when.
We write in British-influenced English because much of our readership is European, and we use the 24-hour clock and euro prices throughout, because that is what you will see on the ground.
What we check, and how often
- Fares and ticket prices are reviewed at least once a year, and immediately when GVB or NS announce a change.
- Opening hours and booking windows are checked against the venue’s own site before publication and rechecked seasonally.
- Rules and local laws — the cannabis and alcohol restrictions in De Wallen, group-tour limits, the tourist tax rate — are checked against municipal announcements, because these are the details that change fastest in Amsterdam.
- Festival and event dates are updated as organisers publish them; where dates are not yet confirmed we say so rather than guessing.
If you find something that has gone out of date, telling us is the fastest way to get it fixed. There is a form on the contact page and corrections go to the top of the queue.
What we don’t do
We do not sell tours, take bookings, or run an affiliate programme. Nothing on this site is a paid placement, and no business has ever paid to be recommended here or to be left out. When we link to a hotel, a museum or a restaurant it is because it is the right answer to the question the page is about.
We also do not pretend that Amsterdam is uncomplicated. Some of our guides deal with the Red Light District, coffeeshops and Dutch drug law, because visitors ask about them and misinformation gets people fined or hurt. We treat those subjects the way we treat the tram network: factually, with the current rules, and with a clear line on what is respectful and what is not. We are not encouraging anything — we are explaining what is legal, what is not, and what will get you a €100 fine.
Who is behind this
AmsterdamTourism.org is an independently owned and independently run publication. The guides are researched, written and fact-checked in-house by the same people who edit the site — there is no sponsored content, no guest-post scheme and no outside editorial input. The site is funded by advertising, which is why we are careful to keep the commercial side and the editorial side entirely separate — advertisers have no say in what we recommend.
If you want to reach the people who actually write these pages, the contact page goes straight to us.