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Welcome to Amsterdam |
Affordable accommodation in the city is scarce for WWWTF. Here are some tips on finding/offering accommodation in Amsterdam.
WWWTF is a week full of events dedicated to the web, and many people from the industry will flock to Amsterdam for the occasion. We encourage attendees to meet and help each other out. Have a free couch or a guest room? Don’t mind sharing a hotel room? Can offer a ride from another city to Amsterdam for a fellow attendee? Tweet at @wwwtfamsterdam and use the hashtag #wwwtfamsterdam and we will be happy to spread the word!
Amsterdam offers all of the conventional accommodation options found anywhere else. You can check availability and book hotels and hostels using services such as Booking.com, Agoda, Hotels.com.
If you prefer, you can also check out private accommodation providers such as AirBnB and also Booking.com, or try Couchsurfing.
Public transportation is pretty good in The Netherlands, you can easily get to most places by train, bus or tram. The center of Amsterdam is not that big, so it's walkable.
The Netherlands uses a public transport chip card system. Locals use a card that you can top up, but it costs you €7,50 once and always needs to have at least €20,- on the card to be able to travel with the train.
If you don't travel a lot with public transport in The Netherlands, you can buy a single-use chip cards. It's a bit more expensive, but easier to use.
You can buy a single-use chip card for the train at one of the NS ticket machines. They are the yellow machines on the train stations. You enter your destination and you can pay with cash, debit card or credit card. Payment types depend on the machine, some machines don't have the option to pay with cash.
If you want to travel by tram, bus or underground metro, you can buy a one-hour card or a (multi-)day card.
Most tickets can be bought from the conductor or driver on the tram, or bus or at the ticket machine at a metro station. One-day or two-day tickets cannot be bought on the bus. Three-day or four-day tickets can only be bouht at the ticket machines at the metro.
If you want to find your way around Amsterdam with public transportation, there are a bunch of different apps that you can use.
- Google Maps – it has all public transportation in The Netherlands on it
- 9292 – public transport planner for The Netherlands
- NS Travel Planner Xtra – Station-to-station planner for the Dutch railways. You can also buy mobile tickets for the trains on it.
- GVB – GVB is the municipal transport company of Amsterdam, and it has its own official app. You can use it to see when a GVB tram, bus, metro or night bus leaves and which route is best
From Schiphol Airport, the easiest way to get to the city center is to take a train. A single ticket from Schiphol Airport to Amsterdam Central station is €4,20.
A taxi, should be about €15 to Amsterdam Central Station. But watch out for bad taxis (see below).
Try to avoid regular taxis in Amsterdam, they can be violent or corrupt.
Abel is a good alternative, it's is a ride sharing service where you can even book rides in advance. There's also Uber in bigger Dutch cities.
Amsterdam is known for it's bicycle friendliness, and you can rent bicycles pretty much everywhere.
MacBike are well known, and also have some tours around the city on bikes.
A lot of places offer free WiFi, sometimes you have to ask for the password. Also, the trains and some busses have free WiFi.
Debit card (like Maestro) is the most common form of payment, most shops and stalls accept debit cards. Credit cards are less common in The Netherlands, so it's not accepted everywhere (especially not outside of Amsterdam). So make sure you ask if they accept credit card before ordering any food.
You aren’t obliged to tip in the Netherlands. However, leaving extra change or rounding up the bill in restaurants, bars and cafés is common. Around 5-10% of the bill. Tipping hotel staff, tour guides or taxi drivers is not common.