The Netherlands, from the water up.
Which canal boat is worth the ticket. When Keukenhof is actually open. Whether the museum queue can be skipped. Dutch tours, reviewed and priced.
What a first week in the Netherlands is made of.
A boat, a windmill village, a museum that sells out, a wheel of cheese cut to order, and the few weeks the bulb fields are in colour. Start with the days most Dutch trips get planned around.
Amsterdam has 165 canals. The hour you pick decides the trip.
All 175 canal cruises →
Open hull or heated saloon, drinks included or a bar on board, sixty minutes on the Herengracht or a whole evening between the bridges. These three carry the most travellers; the full list splits the rest by hour and by boat.
Low bridges, small hull, drinks aboard
You sit at water level, close enough to the Jordaan bridges to read the brickwork, on a boat small enough to turn into the side canals the big glass ones cannot enter.
Dinner while the bridges come on
The Golden Bend after dark, then the Reguliersgracht with seven arched bridges lit and lined up, and a kitchen sending out courses between them.
The light festival, read from the water
For eight weeks the canals fill with installations built to be seen from a boat rather than a pavement. The heated hulls are the ones that sell out.
Four days in Amsterdam, and the ticket releases decide two of them.
The Anne Frank House goes weeks ahead, the Van Gogh runs on timed entry, and the best boats leave before the day-trippers reach the Damrak. Fix those first and walk the rest.
Van Gogh, a brewery and a great many boats.
The full list →The bookings that carry more travellers than anything else in the country, and what each one is actually like on the day.
1
Van Gogh Museum Ticket
Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, timed entry ticket with mobile voucher and optional 11-language audio guide. See paintings, drawings, letters.
From · $32
Read our review →
2
Heineken Experience Ticket including 2 Drinks
from $29
3
Amsterdam Classic Saloon Boat Cruise with Drinks and Cheese
from $21
4
Amsterdam Luxury Canal Cruise + Unlimited Drinks & Bites option
from $18
5
Rijksmuseum Entry Ticket
from $31
6
Classic Saloon Boat Cruise with Cheese & Wine
from $18
7
Evening Cruise with Optional Wine and Snacks
from $23
8
Heated Canal Cruise with Unlimited Drinks & Bite
from $18
Three great collections on one square, and a Banksy vault down the road.
Van Gogh’s bedroom and his last wheatfields on one side of the Museumplein, the Night Watch on the other, the Stedelijk between them. All of it runs on timed entry now; the first and last slots of the day are the quiet ones.
What a day out in the Netherlands actually costs.
Every tour on the site by price. An hour on the water costs less than lunch beside it.
Canal hours, museum entry, cheese counters and the walking tours that fill a morning.
Full days out: the windmill villages, Keukenhof with transport, food walks with six stops.
- 1Van Gogh Museum Ticketfrom $32
- 2Heineken Experience Ticket including 2 Drinksfrom $29
- 3Rijksmuseum Entry Ticketfrom $31
Private skippers, all-inclusive boats and the long days that take in three provinces.
Things that only happen in the Netherlands.
The Working Windmills
The mills on the Zaan are not scenery. One grinds pigment for oil paint, another presses linseed, a third saws timber the way the Dutch fleet was built, and the millers hand you the flour on the way out. Half an hour from Amsterdam Centraal, and busiest between eleven and two.
- 1Zaanse Schans, Volendam & Marken Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 18,501 reviews
- 2Zaanse Schans, Edam, Volendam & Marken Bus Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 15,034 reviews
- 3Day Trip to Zaanse Schans, Edam, Volendam and Marken from Amsterdam★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 5,392 reviews
The Village Without Streets
Giethoorn has footbridges where a high street should be, and the post still finishes its round by boat. The whisper boats need no licence, so most visitors steer their own down the Binnenpad. Two hours from Amsterdam, and best before ten or after four.
- 1Ultimate Giethoorn Experience with Boat Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 2,592 reviews
- 2Giethoorn, Afsluitdijk, Zaanse Schans Day Tour Incl Hotel Pick Up★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,679 reviews
- 3Village & National Park Canal Cruise with Coffee★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 1,596 reviews
The Cheese Counter
Dutch cheese is sold by age: jong at four weeks, belegen at four months, oude at a year, when it crystallises and turns almost sweet. A tasting runs youngest to oldest with mustard and syrup between, and the shops in Volendam and on the Zaan still cut the wheels to order.
- 1Amsterdam Classic Saloon Boat Cruise with Drinks and Cheese★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 31,825 reviews
- 2Classic Saloon Boat Cruise with Cheese & Wine★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 27,035 reviews
- 3Guided Zaanse Schans, Windmills & Cheese Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 4,826 reviews
The other Dutch cities are forty minutes down the line.
Rotterdam rebuilt itself in glass and cantilevers, Delft still looks like the Vermeer, Utrecht drinks on wharfs a storey below the street and The Hague keeps a beach at the end of the tram. None of them is more than an hour from Centraal.
- 1Harbor Sightseeing Cruisefrom $22
- 21-Hour Sightseeing Splash Tourfrom $35
- 3City Canal Cruisefrom $22
Amsterdam gets better once the bridges light up.
More after-dark tours →Amsterdam Evening Canal Cruise with Live Guide and Onboard Bar
Read our review →Light Festival Boat with Unlimited Drinks & Snack
Read our review →
Four Dutch tickets that run on a calendar, not on the day.
Most of this country can be booked from the hotel the night before. These cannot. They go in timed releases, or they only exist for a few weeks of the year.
- 01Keukenhof Entry & Shuttlebus with Flexible ReturnThe gardens open for about eight weeks from late March. Outside that window there is nothing there to see.
- 02Amsterdam Anne Frank: Small-Group Walking Tour & Local GuideTickets are released online on a rolling schedule and clear within the hour. There is no queue at the door.
- 03Van Gogh Museum TicketTimed entry only, and the morning slots go first through every school holiday.
- 04Light Festival Boat with Unlimited Drinks & SnackThe canal installations run from late November to mid January. The heated boats sell out before the cold does.
It rains here about one day in three. Go indoors.
The weather comes off the North Sea and arrives sideways, which is why the bike capes outsell the umbrellas. The good answers are all under a roof: a gallery, a tasting room, a brewery, a workshop with a hot plate. None of them cancel.
By town — wherever your hotel is
Amsterdam1,308 tours
Rotterdam62 tours
The Hague43 tours
Utrecht14 tours
Haarlem36 tours
Maastricht26 tours
Giethoorn72 tours- Every review in the Netherlands →
By day — what kind of day are you planning?
A week in the Netherlands, all of it by train.
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