Amsterdam City Card
There’s no shortage of things to do in this city. I think the biggest challenge is figuring out what to do and how to fit everything in! There were a few things that made out trip easier and helped us do everything we wanted to do. We bought the Amsterdam City Card and the Amsterdam City & Region Travel ticket. Both cards made our lives so much easier and gave us a lot of savings! I've outlined the major details and you can see if it’s worth it to buy them for your trip!
Amsterdam City Card:
There were three main perks for the city card that appealed to us.
1. It gets you unlimited transportation around the city with the buses and trams. It’s so nice traveling around the city when you didn’t have to worry about buying individual tickets every time. The card made it so convenient to just hop on a tram and get off wherever you want. It would've been such a hassle every time we got on a tram to have to buy tickets and you can easily lose track of how much money you were spending.
2. Free entrance to all major museums. The city card was definitely cost effective because the entrance to most museums were 15-20 euros. If you went to three museums then the card already saved you money! There’s a long list of the museums that are included and you can look at the list here. We went to a bunch of museums and I’ll be writing a post about the different ones we went to. Our favorites were the Eye Museum, Stedelijk and NEMO Science Museum!
3. Free canal cruise. This was a nice perk because we already knew we wanted to do a boat ride while we were in Amsterdam. The City Card works with a handful of boat operators/cruise companies. We chose to use Lovers Canal Cruise because the dock was right by Central Station. They had cruises departing every 30 minutes and we got a ticket that could be used anytime that day. It was nice not being constrained to a certain time. We got there at around 6pm and got to enjoy the sunset on the water! The only downside was that the second half of the cruise, things were a lot harder to see because it was so dark.
Having the city card also gives you discounts on other tours too. It gave us a 20% discount on our bike tour we booked through Yellow Bike! The City Card comes in a few different prices based on how many days you want the card. 24-hours costs 59 Euros, 48-hours costs 74 Euros, 72 hours 89 Euros and 96-hours 105 Euros.
Amsterdam City & Regional Travel Ticket:
If you’re staying outside of the city, then I’d recommend getting the region ticket because the Amsterdam City Card doesn’t include transportation outside of the city. So that means you’d have to buy separate tickets for any region buses or trains. John and I were staying at an Airbnb in a town outside called Purmurend. It’s a 30-minute bus ride into the city, and each way cost about 10 Euros. We decided that it would be cheaper to buy the region ticket because we’d be taking the bus twice a day. We also knew that we were going to see the tulips fields at the Keukenhof Gardens, which was a bus and a train ride away.
I think that if you are staying in the city, then there’s no need to buy this Regional Ticket and the City Card is all you need! If you wanted to go visit some of the other locations outside of the city, you would be fine just buying individual tickets. But, if you don't want to visit any of the museums-- then buying this card would be good because it covers all your transportation inside and outside of the city!
We learned about these cards when we arrived at the airport and it would’ve been nice to know about them beforehand. It would've helped us plan, rather than trying to quickly calculate if it would be cost effective for us. Like with any travel, knowing what you want to do during your time in Amsterdam will help you decide if you should buy these cards. I hope that this helped anyone that’s traveling to Amsterdam and if you’re debating getting any of these discount cards!