I have always wanted to go Amsterdam. After a few years of talking about it with a friend, we finally decided to book our Amsterdam holiday in May 2025. I made an itinerary to make the most out of our budget and time.
We both used our Monzo cards for the trip as they have a good exchange rate. It also meant that we could easily split costs, and spend like we were at home – contactless.
All the costs shown are what I paid for. If solo some traveling transport costs like taxi fares will be higher. I have converted all costs from Euros to British Pounds.
I have left my rankings out of 10 for the venues we ate at and activities we did, so you can quantitatively get a sense of our individual experiences, to make an informed decision on if you would like to do them too.
My friend is gluten free (GF), so we found some GF eateries before the holiday.
booking THE HOLIDAY:
- Flights – return tickets with EasyJet* for £107.78 (via Quidco so I got a little cash back)
- Travel Insurance – StaySure for £15.28.
- Hostel – 3 night stay at the Bee Hostel for £134.50
- Taxis – £24.75 to the UK Airport (Birmingham in our case) and £38.88 to Amsterdam ‘Schiphol’ Airport.
*EasyJet did change the flight times which caused some stress. After speaking to them on the phone they booked us onto a later flight on the last day. This meant we had even more time to explore, for no added cost (rightly so).
Total so far: £321.19.
Day 1:
Afternoon:
We had a late departure of 4pm, so the first day was dedicated to getting to Amsterdam, settling into the women only floor in the Bee Hostel, and doing a few activities.
Evening:
After getting lost on foot trying to find the Canal Cruise we had pre-booked, we explored the Light District (9/10). It was a sight to behold with working women having doors to their bedrooms from the street. The women were beautiful, and most tourists respected the signs saying not to take photos of them (or risk fines). It was liberating to see women being protected. Most looked like they enjoyed the work they did, and were even empowered by it.
We also checked out the oldest building ‘Oude Kerk‘ (5/10), which wasn’t as interesting as it sounded. We took a stroll around the picturesque Jordaan District (8/10), which made the Amsterdam canals look very romantic. I can see why they say Amsterdam is a great place for a couples holiday.
I bought myself a meal deal earlier in the day for £3.40 with a Tesco club card, so had that for dinner, not wanting to waste food. It consisted of a tuna sandwich, walkers baked cheese & onion crisps and water. In all honesty I did feel like a cheapskate eating it. My friend ate a GF vegetarian rice dish at the Thai Bird Restaurant. She loved it so much I was a little jealous.
We walked back to the hostel, being too scared to dare using the public transport at night. We got back quite late. After a quick shower we rested our heads.
Cost so far: £324.59.
Day 2:
Morning:
Our phones had low charge, due to our only plug adaptor not working (tip: bring a backup). We nipped to the corner shop ‘Jansen & Jansen’ (7/10) from the Bee Hostel to buy a new one for £8.44.
We took a tram, 1 minute walk from the Bee Hostel to Central Amsterdam. There, we devoured an organic banana and chocolate spread pancake from Pancakes Amsterdam (10/10) for £12.73. This became our morning routine. They also made a GF equivalent for my friend for an extra £2 (happy days).
Next, we took our 1 hour Lovers Canal Cruise (9/10) pre-booked on their website for £13.44 (they let us use our previous day ticket due to getting lost). The cruise was a true highlight of our trip and a bargain for the money. There was an optional guided tour in your native language to get to know the city whilst cruising along the canal. The only downside was the disposable earphones, which were mostly discarded after use if you didn’t take them home.
Having gone on both the day and night cruises, the daytime was without a doubt the best. The sun was shining and I cheekily opened up the back window. I was greeted with a salt water breeze, it was just like being at the beach.
Afternoon:
After that, feeling like seasoned travellers, we took the train M52 towards De Laaste Kruimel (8/10). We fell in love with the cafes instagram menu, and wanted to tick it off our Amsterdam bucket list. I had the Apple pie with a double whipped cream serving for £7.25 (I thought Amsterdam was supposed to be expensive?). My friend had the only GF option they had – Polenta cake, which she described as delicious. We were lucky enough to get the best seats in the house, stumbled across by accident. We sat on their only balcony with views onto the canal, waving at cruises that went by. It was the best place for a lunch or brunch. Despite the dizzy windy staircase to the loo, it was somewhere we would definitely go to again.
We went back to the Bee Hostel to top up our phones on charge. We then ventured out to the Artis Zoo (7/10), a short 2 minute walk away, which we had pre-booked for £25.39. In about 2 hours, we saw zebras, a jaguar, elephant, penguins, flamingos, gorillas, giraffes and more. Overall, we had mixed feelings about the zoo. Some animals looked happy with lots of room to move around like the elephant. On the other hand, others like the jaguar and gorillas looked depressed and had proportionately less room than other animals. In hindsight, I don’t think we would go again. It was quite expensive for what it was and ethically not the best. The flowers, plants and trees were stunningly beautiful and gave it a rainforest vibe. Personally I think it would have been better as a park to encourage native wildlife to the area.
Evening:
Being quite hungry, we decided to eat at De Plantage (9/10) – the restaurant adjacent to Artis Zoo. Both of us had the GF Vegetarian Risotto, which we found to be something we could only describe as *heavenly*. We also devoured the complimentary bread and virgin olive oil – discovering the delights of this moreish combo for the first time. It felt like a delicacy and we felt ridiculous for judging anyone prior as being too basic to enjoy this. Despite being a fancy looking restaurant, Michelin vibes, with a tree in the middle of their bar/reception, the meal only cost £21.06. This price included the table tap water, which they *cheekily* charged for without telling us. Overall it felt like a fair price for the shared taste experience and excellent customer service.
We then took the tram and (free) ferry to the A’dam Lookout Tower (8/10) we had pre-booked for £14.31. We were impressed by the light shows being in the lift to the top floor, which made being in a lift less daunting. The sights overlooking Amsterdam were stunning. We got the best selfies and photos together there – my friend looked like a model/goddess in one of them, and I didn’t look too shabby myself.
We also enjoyed a ‘free’ entry to the 3 minute VR rollercoaster experience (6/10) as there was an issue with the card payment machine. It would usually cost around £7 each (one of us got in for free, the other paid full price, so it ended up costing £3.58 each). I screamed my head off a few times, as it was very realistic. I wouldn’t have been impressed if I had had to pay for it as it would work out about £3.50 per minute (roughly 2 minutes long).
There was also the ‘Swing’ which literally swung over Amsterdam, and had a massive drop. I would have peed my pants if I had got involved, so gave that a miss. I can see that it would have been a hit with thrill-seekers, maybe too much as the metal belt didn’t look that secure. The A’dam Lookout Tower, also had a few glass floor circles. I was too scaredy-cat to stand on it, in case of the 0.0000001% chance (made that up) that it broke.
It was cool to hear that one of the floors of the A’dam Lookout Tower was used to teach music to disadvantaged children. This gave it a very community feel about the place. Another floor came alive at night with a nightclub. We gave it a miss as we hadn’t planned to get involved with nightlife on this trip.
Finally, we headed to the Tolhuistuin (8/10) next door. We had pre-booked tickets for £17.95 to listen to the US country soul singer Caylee Hammack (10/10). This was an unexpected highlight of our trip. Caylee was a beautiful, self proclaimed faux red head, extremely talented singer with a mighty pair of lungs on her. It was the first concert I had ever been to, and I was so impressed. I would definitely see her again.
Her music was raw, honest and occasionally quite funny. It was just her, no band, and she did a fantastic job of engaging her audience throughout. She gave introductions for each song, with a story of how they came to be, through life experiences. We managed to cheekily ask for a quick selfie as the queue for buying her merch was building up; being unfamiliar with the ferry timetable and not wanting to miss the last one. Both of us thoroughly enjoyed her concert and couldn’t believe how talented Caylee was.
We then headed ‘home’ (the hostel felt like home at that point) on the tram, and took a shower. The train and tram costs were charged for a few days later after the trip had ended. Costs are detailed in day 4.
Day 2 was without a doubt the best day of the trip overall. The Lovers Day Canal Cruise and the Caylee Hammack concert were soooo good. If we had to leave the next day after that, we would have still felt like we had a great time.
Cost so far: £448.74.
Day 3:
Morning:
Being a geek at heart, we checked out the Artis Microbe Museum (9/10), for £14.76. It was so interesting, and within about 2 hours, we had seen what felt like hundreds of microbes under a microscope. We had also learnt that there were about 160 trillion microbes each in our bodies. Queue minds blown emoji. We also joined a presentation in English which spoke about the microbe of the day: nematodes. This was particularly interesting to me as a gardener interested in eco friendly pest control. These bad boys kill annoying plant and crop eating pests without the need for environmentally harmful chemical pesticides. I would 100% recommend adding this to your to do list if you go to Amsterdam. Apparently Artis Microbia is the only microbe museum in the world.
After this, we took the tram 14 to Central Amsterdam for our regular breakfast meal – pancakes at Pancakes Amsterdam (11/10). This time we had strawberries and chocolate spread. Having enjoyed my first one so much, I was a pig and asked for another one. With the double pancakes and more expensive strawberries topping, my order came to £29.04. Well worth it though! I justified it as a breakfast and lunch at the same time. I love that my cravings and food maths worked together to permit a double pancake order. I do not regret it at all. I’d go back there just to do this food experience all over again. I can’t forget how delicious and fresh those strawberries were in combination with the chocolate covered organic pancakes. Salivating just thinking about it!
Afternoon:
Next we paid £7.59 for entry into the 2 Hemp Museums (8/10), located on the same road. I saw many celebrity quotes celebrating the use of hemp. We were educated on hemps history and why it has been censored; despite the many use cases as both an eco-friendly and cost-effective building material, and medication for many ailments. It was well-worth the money paid. We also both bought a hemp soap for £2.10 from the gift shop. It is very long lasting (had for months and still going strong). There were also other gift ideas, but some we thought we might get in trouble for “smuggling” home.
We then decided to hire bikes with Donkey Bikes (6/10) to travel like the locals and see the city from a different perspective. After a short 10 minute cycle ride we arrived at Oosterpark (6/10). It was a nice park, but in hindsight, wasn’t something to shout home about. As my friend’s knee was playing up, we handed one bike back to a local drop off point, and I ‘croggied’ her around the city. It was nice to explore Amsterdam on a bike, but after a while my own knees started to feel it.
Months later and my knees still aren’t recovered from the intense workout. In hindsight we should have opted for the slightly more expensive electric bikes, to take the strain away from our knees. In the end the bikes were a headache as we could only park them in specific places which had limited spaces, and they were very spaced out. It would have been better if we could have left the bikes near any bike rack and notified the app of their location.
Evening:
The one perk was being able to lock the bikes anywhere (although the app was sometimes temperamental), which we did whilst we went into Vapiano (6/10) restaurant. We were served by a lovely London lass who made the 20 minute wait for the food more interesting; telling the tale of how she was only went to Amsterdam for a holiday 10 years ago and never went back to the U.K. She also said how the drinking water was so much better than the U.K. and so safe to drink that you don’t have to worry about buying bottled water, like you do when you go to other non-native countries.
I bought a seafood pasta for £12.69. I ended up eating this cold, as we had to cycle to our next stop. We had pre-booked the Lovers Night Canal Cruise (6/10) for £13.44. As we were running late and didn’t want to miss the last cruise of the night (and our last chance as we were leaving the following day). We locked the bike again after a stressful hick up of needing to locate a plug to charge the phone being used to lock the bike on the Donkey app which was on 1%. A phone battery pack would have saved our stress here. We then onboarded the cruise with relief that we had made it just in the nick of time. Both the night cruise and meal were disappointing overall, and I would not recommend either.
Finally, time to drop off the bike. By this time – around 10pm as my friend got chatting to friend they bumped into, all the spaces in the local Centraal Amsterdam drop off point had been taken. We ended up cycling to another 2 drop off points, to arrive and see all spots had been taken again. After 40 minutes of cycling, when we had almost given up and prepared to pay the penalty for dropping the bike off in an undesignated area, we got lucky on our 4th attempt. My legs felt like ‘leg day’ would never be over. We took a short trip on the train to a stop close to the hostel, then walked the rest of the way to the hostel.
We finished the day with a well-deserved shower. Unfortunately my shower had other ideas, and kept flashing on and off. Sods law I had selected the shower that wanted to play games and try its best to induce epilepsy (thankfully I don’t suffer from this). I then made a little post-it note to alert my fellow hostel stayers and let the hostel know. I had a headache from the stress of the day and flickering shower, so took some painkillers (thank you to modern medicine) and by morning my headache was a distant memory.
The total cost for the approx. 6 hour bike hire was £5.92 each, not bad at all. I think hiring electric bikes instead, having sufficient charge on our phones to easily lock the bikes and not croggying my friend (I’m not as fit as I once was) would have made this an 8.5/10 experience.
Cost so far: £534.28.
Day 4:
Morning:
Overall, the Bee Hostel was clean, snug, had a separate lockable locker, and had everything we needed. I would stay again, but only in the women only dorm as the mixed dorms looked like a mixed bag, and I personally would not feel safe. For the extra circa £5 per night for the women only dorm, it’s a no brainer for solo and group women travellers.
The staff were friendly and the only issue we had was the hostel running out of space on the last day to store luggage for £2. However, they recommended we store our belongings at their sister hostel – the Elephant Hostel, which was even cooler inside and just a 2 minute walk away. The ability to lock up our bags was a gift from the gods, as having to cart around our backpacks would have caused us back pain and would have made us travel so much slower.
However not having enough space in our own hostel ate about 30-40 minutes into our time, which meant we didn’t get to do our last activity of the day. My recommendation is to store your bags very early in the morning as the Bee Hostel only has 1 cupboard to store belongings.
We took a short 10 minute walk (you can also take the tram, we just couldn’t afford to wait, having a jam-packed day) to the Waterlooplein Market (7/10), and picked out some souvenirs and self-gifts. It was a cross between a carboot type vibe without the cars, and souvenir and clothing dedicated shops. I ended up buying 3 earthy necklaces for about £10, after negotiating them down a bit. These were slightly more expensive than what you would find in a UK charity shop or car boot for pre-worn items. However, I was in Amsterdam on holiday, they were very rare looking necklaces and hadn’t bought myself anything so treated myself.
There was also a stall playing Asa – Jailer as I approached it, which was a complete *vibe*; especially the ‘if you walk into a marketplace’ lyric, as I was in a marketplace at the time. I did what anyone would do under the circumstances: jam along and sing all the words with the stall-holder. It was a great moment to be in, living my best life, shopping pre-loved with the sun beaming on me.
Afternoon:
We then took a tram to our favourite place in town: Pancakes Amsterdam (12/10) for a late brekky. This time we tried the Apple & Cinnamon with chocolate spread topping, which was another winner, costing me £16.49. It’s fair to say that I can 100% recommend Pancakes Amsterdam after eating there 3 times and never being disappointed and devouring every single meal. So good that I would go back to Amsterdam just for the pancakes! They did have other options on the menu, but we just wanted to keep to our little tradition and have sweet pancakes each time. We had the thin pancakes, rather than the thick American pancakes.
We walked to Organic to Go, a GF cafe. When there we decided not to buy anything as nothing we saw looked appetising enough to justify their price tag. They also had *cannabis brownies* available, but we decided not to buy these either, having witnessed a fellow hostel guest have a bad reaction to it the previous day.
We took a tram to Rembrandt Park (7/10), which had beautiful tall trees (but not much else). Then we walked a further 10 minutes to Vondelpark (9/10). It was full of wonder, flowers, a water feature and historic statues. Vondelpark was by far the best of all the parks we visited. If you had to pick just one to visit, it would be this one.
Evening:
Being a bit short on time, we took a tram (with a slight accidental detour going the wrong way) to the Holocaust Museum, located close to the Bee Hostel. We arrived too late in the day (30 minutes before closing) and they said that we needed 2 hours to really make the most of the experience. Instead, they recommended the Holocaust Memorial across the road, which my friend visited for free for about 20 minutes. I waited outside as I didn’t want our trip to end on a sad note.
We then walked to the Botanical Gardens, to be told that it had just closed a few minutes prior at 5pm. Google had advised it closed at 5.30pm. This was a disappointment as it would have been a cherry on top to have visited it. We were able to see some things from the outside by walking around the gardens gates.
After that we walked back to the Elephant Hostel to collect our luggage, and went back to the Bee Hostel to charge our phones. I also bought a hot chocolate and banana bread from the Bee Hostel for £5.08. We then waited for the taxi to take us to the airport.
At the airport, I got very peckish and went to 3 eateries and spent a total of £16.31 on a cheese panini, tuna sandwich and blueberry muffin (airport costs for you). I also bought 2 chocolate tulips packs as souvenirs for family, costing £10.15 (rip off, but they did taste nice at least). My friend bought chocolates for herself in a Vincent Van Gogh printed metal tin case. This in hindsight was the better option, as the case is a nice reusable keepsake item.
We went our separate ways when we got back to the UK.
Total tram and train cost for the holiday was £18.80 – an absolute bargain, and very reliable compared to the UK public transport system.
Total cost of the Amsterdam holiday: £613.11
Summary:
In conclusion, I think we got a lot of bang for our buck. We had a jam-packed holiday, full of fun and thought-provoking activities, and mostly delicious foods. I must admit that the trip required a lot of thinking on my feet when things didn’t go quite to plan. It was also a lot of responsibility to ensure my friend could eat each day with finding close by GF eateries. I think it would be much easier to plan a holiday without GF considerations, but hopefully anyone with GF diets can use this as a guide for safe places to eat at.
I was extremely tired for a few weeks after I got back home. In retrospect, we could have had less activities each day and had a more relaxed time, instead of being constantly ‘on the clock’ in order to get everything in.
Planning the perfect trip:
We surprisingly didn’t need all 4 days. 3 days is more than enough, unless you want to travel a little outside of Amsterdam. If I had to plan a perfect trip for someone with everything I know now, it would include eating at Pancakes Amsterdam everyday, and the following activities:
Day 1: Lovers Day Cruise, Artis Microbe Museum and Red Light District in the evening
Day 2: Hemp Museums, train and free ferry to A’dam Lookout Tower then Tolhuistuin concert in the evening (pre-booking essential)
Day 3: Anne Frank House/Museum and electric bike hire to explore the city
Day 4: Windmill tour OR Keukenhoff tulip fields (March-May only), then play the rest of the day by ear
Other activity ideas we didn’t get to do:
- Anne Frank House / Museum – in hindsight, would have loved to have fitted this in, but you have to book months in advance
- Sloterpark – park with trees, streams
- Park Frankendael – nice building, trees, flowers
- Sarphatipark – park with trees, fountain
- Albert Cuyp – Europes largest market
- De 9 Straatjes – shops, cafes, galleries
- Noordmarket Flea Market – in Jordaan district, for souvenirs, and close to Cafe Winkel 43 (famous for its apple pie)
- Catten Cafe – cats in a cafe
- Keukenhof – beautiful tulip fields (end March to early May)
- Windmill tour
- Bloemenmarkt – the worlds only floating flower market
Other GF eateries we didn’t get to try:
- Foodhallen
- De Italiaan
- Tapi & Bowls
- Croque Madam
- Wild and the Moon
Has this fully costed trip inspired you to visit Amsterdam? What would you do if you went? If you have been Amsterdam before, what activities and eateries you would recommend?
