Amsterdam is a better city for children than its reputation suggests. It is small enough to cross on foot, flat enough for a six-year-old to cycle, and packed with things that happen to work for adults and children at the same time: boats, a world-class zoo in the middle of the city, a science museum you can climb on the roof of, and a park the size of a neighbourhood.
The mistake most visiting families make is not choosing the wrong attractions. It is staying too long, and staying in the wrong place.
How Many Days to Spend in Amsterdam with Kids
Two days is right for most families. Three is the maximum.
Amsterdam’s family-friendly core is compact. The zoo, the science museum, the main parks and the canal boats sit within about three kilometres of each other, and two full days covers all of it without rushing. A third day makes sense if you want a museum morning as well.
Beyond that, the city starts working against you. It is crowded, expensive, and short on the two things children need most: space to run and a garden to come back to. Families who book a week in Amsterdam usually spend the back half of it on trains going somewhere else, which raises an obvious question about where they should have slept in the first place.
The Netherlands is roughly the size of Maryland. From a base in the middle of the country, Amsterdam is a 30-minute drive or a 45-minute train ride, and so is almost everything else. Our guide to seeing the Netherlands without changing hotels covers how that works in practice.
The Best Family-Friendly Attractions in Amsterdam
If you only do four things: NEMO, Artis, a canal cruise, and Vondelpark. That is a complete two-day itinerary and it suits ages 3 to 13.
NEMO Science Museum is the green copper building shaped like a ship’s hull rising out of the water near Centraal Station. Five floors of hands-on experiments aimed squarely at 6 to 12 year olds: chain reactions, soap bubbles, a working laboratory. The rooftop terrace is free to enter without a ticket and has one of the best views in the city, plus a water play area in summer. Allow three hours. It is the single most reliable rainy-day answer in Amsterdam.
Artis Royal Zoo opened in 1838 and is one of the oldest zoos in Europe, which is visible in the best way: it feels like a Victorian botanical garden that happens to have lions in it. There is an aquarium, a butterfly house, a planetarium and a large playground, all on one ticket. Two to four hours depending on ages. See our zoos guide for the rest of the country, several of which are better and cheaper.
A canal cruise is the thing every family does and every family is glad they did. The canal ring is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and an hour on the water is the fastest way to make sense of the city’s shape. Open boats beat glass-topped ones with children. Some operators run dedicated kids’ cruises with audio guides aimed at younger passengers.
Vondelpark is 47 hectares in the middle of the city, with several playgrounds, a paddling pool in summer, and enough space to let children go feral for two hours. Free. It is the release valve that makes the rest of the day survivable.
Beyond the core four:
- Amsterdamse Bos, a forest three times the size of Central Park on the southern edge of the city, with a goat farm and petting zoo (Geitenboerderij Ridammerhoeve) where children feed the kids and you drink coffee.
- A’DAM Lookout, across the water from Centraal Station via a free ferry, with a swing over the edge of the roof. Teenagers love it.
- Hortus Botanicus, a small botanical garden with a butterfly greenhouse. Good for an hour with young children.
- The Houseboat Museum, a genuine canal boat you can walk through in fifteen minutes. Cheap, and children find it fascinating.
- De 9 Straatjes, nine small shopping streets threading the canals, which is where you go when everyone needs to walk somewhere pleasant with no agenda.
The Museums: Which Ones Work with Children
The Rijksmuseum works. The Van Gogh Museum mostly does not.
The Rijksmuseum has a dedicated children’s route and a family game that turns the collection into a hunt. Rembrandt’s The Night Watch is enormous, dramatic and full of things to point at, and Vermeer’s rooms are small enough not to exhaust anyone. Ninety minutes is plenty.
The Van Gogh Museum is a single artist’s life told in rooms, which is compelling for adults and slow for children. Under-8s will not last. Teenagers with an interest in art will. The Stedelijk Museum next door is modern art, which some children find liberating and others find baffling.
The Anne Frank House deserves its own note. The museum itself recommends it for ages 10 and up, and that guidance is sound. Younger children will find it confusing rather than moving, and the queue and the narrow stairs are hard work. If you go, book online well in advance. Tickets are timed and sell out weeks ahead.
Cycling with Children in Amsterdam
Do not put a nervous cyclist on an Amsterdam bike lane. Do put a confident one there.
Amsterdam’s cycling infrastructure is genuinely excellent, but the city centre is a fast, dense, unforgiving place to learn. Local children ride from age four because they have grown up in it. A visiting eight-year-old on a rented bike in rush hour on Damrak is a bad idea.
The workable versions:
- Rent a bakfiets (a cargo bike with a box on the front) and put the small ones in it. This is what Dutch parents do.
- Ride in Vondelpark or Amsterdamse Bos, where there is no traffic.
- Cycle outside the city, where the network is quieter and the country is flat and the cycling is the best in the world.
What to Eat
Pancakes, fries, stroopwafels, in that order.
Dutch pancakes are plate-sized, thin, and served all day with anything from bacon and syrup to apple. Every neighbourhood has a pannenkoekenhuis and children universally approve.
Dutch fries come in a paper cone with mayonnaise, which sounds wrong and is not. A stroopwafel is two thin waffles glued with caramel syrup, best bought warm off a market stall. Raw herring is the local test of nerve, and children either love it or make a face worth photographing. There is more in our guide to traditional Dutch desserts.
Amsterdam with Teenagers
Teenagers do better in Amsterdam than small children do. A’DAM Lookout’s swing, the Rijksmuseum, the Jordaan’s cafés, renting bikes and being allowed to ride ahead, the free ferries across the IJ. The city rewards independence, and it is safe enough to give them some.
The one thing to plan around: the centre after dark is a different city, and not one you want to walk a fourteen-year-old through by accident.
Where to Stay
A hotel room in Amsterdam sleeps two comfortably and four badly.
This is the practical argument that decides most family trips. A family of four in Amsterdam means two hotel rooms, restaurant meals three times a day, and parking at a rate that will genuinely shock you.
The alternative is a house with a garden 30 minutes out. Bungalowpark ‘t Eekhoornnest in Soest, for example, sits in forest at the foot of the Utrechtse Heuvelrug with a playground, bike rental and paths straight into the trees, roughly half an hour from Amsterdam by car and with DierenPark Amersfoort bordering the same woodland. Children get to run; you get a kitchen and a terrace; Amsterdam becomes a day out rather than a place to survive with luggage.
From that kind of base, Haarlem, Utrecht, the tulip fields, Efteling and the rest of the family activities worth doing in this country are all inside an easy morning. The day trips from Amsterdam by train guide covers the rail routes.
Practical Notes
Book the Anne Frank House and the Van Gogh Museum online before you fly. Both sell out.
Trams and metros take contactless bank cards. Tap in and tap out; forgetting to tap out costs you a penalty fare.
Buggies are hard work on canal bridges, cobbles and the near-vertical staircases in old buildings. A carrier is easier for under-2s.
Everyone speaks English, including at ticket desks and playgrounds. See our Netherlands travel guide for Americans for the rest of the practicalities.
Watch for bikes. Not cars. Bikes. They are silent, fast, and they have right of way in more situations than you expect. Teach the children to look both ways before crossing a bike lane on the first day, and the rest of the trip is easy.
