Amsterdam, and the country it keeps forgetting to mention.
Which canal boat is worth the evening. When Keukenhof is actually open. Whether Zaanse Schans beats Kinderdijk, and what a day in Rotterdam really costs. Every Dutch tour, read and priced before you book it.
In the Netherlands the best day out is rarely the expensive one.
Every reviewed tour with a per-person fare, sorted by what it actually costs, as listed by the operator on the day we checked. Tours priced per group — private boats, karaoke booths, rickshaws — are marked as such wherever they appear and are not ranked here against a single ticket.
Museum and attraction entry, the classic hour-and-a-quarter canal round, a cheese tasting.
Where most of Amsterdam sits: guided walks, bike tours, evening cruises with a drink in hand.
The full day out — Zaanse Schans and the fishing villages, Keukenhof with the shuttle, Giethoorn and back.
Private guides, chartered boats and the small-group days that keep the group genuinely small.
Which Amsterdam canal cruise is actually yours?
All canal cruises →
The canal ring has been UNESCO-listed since 2010 and there is a boat leaving it every few minutes. They are not the same trip. The difference is the roof, the bar and the hour you sail.
Seventy-five minutes, glass roof, audio guide
The default and there is no shame in it. A loop of the Herengracht and Prinsengracht with commentary in your own language, and you are back on dry land before you get restless.
Heated boat, open bar, gables lit up
The bridges are floodlit after dark and the boats are heated, which matters more than you would like it to. Drinks are included rather than counted.
Dinner served while the city goes past
A proper sit-down meal on the water. Fewer departures, smaller boats, and the one canal trip that replaces the evening rather than filling an hour of it.
Canals, windmills, tulips: the Dutch shortlist.
The handful of things almost every Netherlands trip is planned around, and the best-reviewed way to book each one.
The Netherlands is ninety minutes wide.
Nothing in this country is far from anything else. A morning train or a coach out of Amsterdam puts you in a windmill village, a fishing harbour or a town with no roads, and you are back for dinner.
Keukenhof opens in late March and shuts in mid-May.
That is the whole season. The garden runs roughly eight weeks each spring and is closed the rest of the year, so a tulip plan is a calendar problem before it is a booking problem. The open bulb fields around Lisse peak later than the garden does — mid-April into early May — and they are a different sight entirely.
All 119 Keukenhof and tulip tours →
What the Netherlands books more than anything else.
Every review →Ranked by how many travellers have actually been and rated it, not by what an operator paid to promote.
1
Van Gogh Museum Ticket
Timed Van Gogh Museum entry with mobile voucher access. See hundreds of paintings, drawings, and letters in 1.5 hours, at your pace.
From · $32 per person
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
9
75 Minute City Canal Cruise with Audio Guide
from $18
Windmills, wheels and cheese: the Dutch originals.
Every country sells a walking tour. These three are the ones the Netherlands invented, industrialised or simply does better than anywhere else.
The Working Windmills
The Zaan district once ran on more than six hundred windmills, sawing timber and grinding pigment for the Dutch fleet — this was an industrial estate, not a postcard. A handful still turn at Zaanse Schans, half an hour north of Amsterdam. Walking the site is free; each mill you go inside charges its own small entry, so bring coins and pick 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 Bike Day
There are more bicycles in the Netherlands than people, and Amsterdam is built around that fact rather than tolerating it. On a guided ride you learn the two rules that keep you alive: never stop in a bike lane, and signal with your arm before you turn. Most tours run three hours and cover ground no walking tour reaches.
- 1Big Bike tour Amsterdam – See all in 3 unforgettable hours★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 4,929 reviews
- 2Small Group Guided Bike Tour of Amsterdam’s Hidden Gems★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,936 reviews
- 3Off the Beaten Path Bike Tour in French★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,632 reviews
The Cheese Tasting
Dutch cheese is graded by age — jong at four weeks, belegen at four months, oude at a year and upward, where it turns crystalline and salty. Tastings run in Amsterdam shops and out at the farms near Volendam and Gouda, usually with a mustard and a jenever alongside, and they will happily talk you past the young stuff.
- 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
Dutch rain arrives sideways. Plan for it.
This is a flat, windy country on the North Sea and the weather changes inside an hour. The good news is that the best of Amsterdam is indoors anyway: the great collections, the brewery tours, the tasting rooms and the workshops all run whatever the sky is doing.
- 1Van Gogh Museum Ticketfrom $32
- 2Rijksmuseum Entry Ticketfrom $31
- 3Moco Museum Amsterdam Entrance Tickets with Banksy & Morefrom $18
Rotterdam and The Hague are forty minutes away and nothing like it.
Rotterdam was flattened in 1940 and rebuilt as an argument with the past — cube houses, a market hall you can walk through, Europe's largest port to sail around. The Hague, half an hour further, keeps the court, the beach at Scheveningen and the small museum holding Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring.
- 1Harbor Sightseeing Cruisefrom $22
- 21-Hour Sightseeing Splash Tourfrom $35
- 3Rotterdam Zoo Blijdorp Entry Ticketfrom $32
Book these before you land in Amsterdam.
Most of this country can be booked from the hotel the night before. These four cannot: they run on timed entry slots, online-only tickets and a garden with a season, and none of them care what time your flight gets in.
- 01Van Gogh Museum TicketTickets are sold online for a fixed time slot. There is no queue you can join at the door.
- 02Rijksmuseum Entry TicketTimed entry, and the morning slots go first — the Night Watch hall is a different room at nine than at two.
- 03Keukenhof Entry & Shuttlebus with Flexible ReturnThe garden is only open from late March to mid-May, and the combined shuttle tickets sell out across the peak weekends.
- 04Heineken Experience Ticket including 2 DrinksSlotted admission with a fixed start time; walk-ups are turned away on busy afternoons.
By city — wherever you are staying
Amsterdam1,421 tours
Rotterdam132 tours
The Hague76 tours
Utrecht41 tours
Haarlem37 tours
Maastricht29 tours
Groningen22 tours
Eindhoven24 tours- Every city and town →
Anne Frank, the Jewish Quarter and the war years.
Between 1940 and 1945 the occupying German authorities deported around 102,000 Jewish people from the Netherlands; fewer than 5,500 came back. Anne Frank was one of the children who did not. The house on the Prinsengracht where her family hid is a museum today, tickets are sold only online and released weeks ahead, and the guided walks below cover the streets around it, the Jewish Quarter and the war beyond Amsterdam. They are not a day out and they are not ranked here.
- Anne FrankWalks of the Prinsengracht and the Jordaan, and the story of the annexe.
- Jewish AmsterdamThe Jewish Quarter, the National Holocaust Museum and the Portuguese Synagogue.
- The war yearsThe Resistance Museum in Amsterdam, and the airborne battlefields around Arnhem.
The newest Dutch tour reviews.
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Amsterdam Private Prosecco Bike with Music Sound System
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Private Day Trip From Amsterdam to Rotterdam and Zaanse Schans
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The Best of Amsterdam: Private Full-Day Tour with a Canal Cruise
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Private Tour of Vermeer’s Delft + Tickets to Vermeer Museum
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Amsterdam Walking Tour with Audioguide on Your Smartphone
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Private tour (max 3 per) to Giethoorn & Canal ride from Amsterdam
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Groningen Self Guided Sherlock Holmes Murder Mystery Game
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Private Photoshoot in Zaanse Schans with Windmills
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