Visiting Amsterdam for the Second Time

Last updated on 23 May 2025

This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase with one of these links, I recieve a small commission at no additional cost to you. Read the full Affiliate Policy.

I’ve been travelling since I was about 18 months old. My family and I (obviously, including me) moved to Mongolia for three years, and we took a few excursions home to New Zealand, as well as around Asia.

And in all my travelling, usually, I like to go places I haven’t been before. I love exploring new places, eating new-to-me food, and learning about different cultures and customs. But there have been exceptions to that over the years.

London, for example, I will always go back to and have been multiple times. I absolutely love that city and think about it far too often. I’ve been to Chicago twice as well as Seattle, Portland and various towns in Oregon and Washington. All of the American locations were because I had family there, but I do love Oregon and Washington and would go back.

There are a few places in Europe I’ve been to twice, now, too. Thanks to the Contiki trip I did in 2024, I got to visit Paris again and do some different things than I went with my family a previous time, and to bookend that trip, I got to visit Amsterdam for a second time.

My first trip to Amsterdam

My first trip to Amsterdam was with my dad, just him and me. I basically just joined him on a work trip he was going on, and we were literally in Amsterdam for one night, but two full days.

If memory serves correctly, we flew in very early on a Friday morning and then flew out late on Saturday evening. Despite only having two full days in Amsterdam, I managed to see a lot.

I won’t go into too much detail because you can read all about that trip here, but the first day was mostly my dad and I exploring the city on foot. We went to the Rijksmuseum, wandered through the streets, along the canals, and had dinner.

The second day, he was at his work event, and I had the day to myself. The inner-city hostel we were staying at was running a free walking tour, which I joined in on, and then I bought a Hop On Hop Off bus ticket and spent the rest of the day jumping on and off the bus at various interesting spots.

My second time visiting Amsterdam

My second trip to Amsterdam was very different. We were at the very last stop on our European Adventurer Contiki trip and had a few things planned for us, as well as downtime where we could go and explore and do what we wanted to.

Before we got to Amsterdam, we stopped off in Edam, which was absolutely adorable, and I could 100% live there.

It was like a little Amsterdam, with canals and bikes and cute houses and cobbled streets and windmills. We met our host for a bike tour around Edam – and when I say ‘tour’ it was mostly just us on rickety bikes zooming around the small town, stopping briefly at a windmill (below).

The same guy also had a clog and cheese shop, so we went there and learnt how they make clogs and cheese, and bought some goodies in their shop.

We arrived in Amsterdam on the coach and headed to the hotel for a brief stop for dinner before getting back on the coach and being dropped at the A’dam Tower. We got a drink and went on Europe’s Highest Swing (very cool, slightly unnerving to be sure), then we popped on the barge that takes you across the water into the main city centre. Photo below of the view at nighttime across Amsterdam from the tower.

We headed to a bar for a drink (and got to experience Febo, a vending-machine-type fast food joint where you get fresh hot food from a little window, which was absolutely wild and genius) before heading back to the hotel.

The next day in Amsterdam, we basically had free time before some evening plans. The coach dropped us off once again, and we headed into the heart of the city.

There were a few things we wanted to do like check out Tony’s Chocolonely Super Store and make our own chocolate bars, which we did first before strolling around the streets, checking out the markets and the canals, eating waffles and wandering into bookstores.

We had a plan to meet some of the other group at the park for a picnic lunch, so we took our cheese that we’d bought the day before at the Edam shop, and grabbed some bread and other things from a supermarket we found. It was a stunning day in Amsterdam, which was perfect for picnicking in the park.

Our evening plans were set by Contiki, at least the first half, and we found ourselves back at the Clog and Cheese man’s place, where they had cooked a delicious meal for us, along with a drink or two. Then back on the coach to Amsterdam, where we took a canal cruise through the night lights (and got told off for being too loud), then back to a bar for our final evening on the trip together.

It was actually quite a sad evening as some of the people on Contiki were getting up at about 5am the next day to go on Germany for Oktoberfest, while some stayed in Amsterdam to fly home from there or continue their travels, and the rest of us got back on the coach to head back to London.

So, which of my trips was better?

Two times visiting Amsterdam, two very different circumstances. And both were excellent.

I’d say my first trip, about 11 years prior, was more about the culture and the history, and bravely tackling the city by myself in my early 20s. My second trip was a lot more whirlwind, more nightlife, more food.

I did really enjoy how, on Contiki, we were able to see a little tiny bit more of the Netherlands than on my first trip. While it was just the town of Edam, which wasn’t far from Amsterdam at all, it was still really nice to be able to see a little bit more of the country than I did before.

Both trips had pros and cons, and both were brilliant.

Would I go back to Amsterdam for a third time? 100%.

Even before my second trip, Amsterdam has always been up there in my top 5 cities I’ve been to. And I’d go back in a heartbeat.

I’d love to know if you’ve been to Amsterdam! What did you do while you were there? What was your favourite thing? Least favourite thing? Drop it in the comments!