Staying in Amsterdam

We always thought going to Europe was extremely expensive, because of the plane ticket and because of hotels.
Once we started to seriously look at hotel prices (and other places to stay) is when we realized that going to Europe didn't have to be insanely expensive.

This is based on the trip my wife and I did on April of 2016.
I will begin with where we actually stayed, and how we booked it. After that I will mention other options, and why we chose the hotel we chose.
 

Our hotel in Amsterdam

We stayed in the "Bastion Hotel Amsterdam Airport", and booked it through Hotels.com.
The hotel room cost us on average about $80 dollars a night, and since we booked it through hotels.com, we paid it with our American Express in US dollars before we arrived.

Picture of a hotel room in the Bastion Hotel Amsterdam Airport

I have to admit that I didn't take any pictures inside the hotel, but the picture above is literally exactly to the room we got. And yes, the rooms come with 2 single beds.

When asked at the lobby about a room with queen size beds, they said none of their hotels have such beds, so they suggested us to remove the bedside table, and place both beds together.
It was awkward at first, but we got used to it. Later we also found out that this is kind of the norm in The Netherlands.

The hotel and room were clean, provided free wifi, free bottles of water every day, a mini fridge, a tv with about 5 English speaking channels, a bathroom with double sink and a fairly large walk-in shower.
Room service was done properly every day, and we never lost anything.

Amenities

The hotel has a free shuttle to Schipol airport every 30 minutes, and it run from 6:30am to like 10pm. This allowed us to use the airport as our "hub" to take trains to wherever we wanted to.

The hotel has a room temperature indoor swimming pool, a "gym" with 5 machines and a sauna. We used the pool a few times and there was never anyone in it.

Breakfast wasn't included, and it costs €15 (euros) per person. There's a restaurant inside the hotel, which we never tried.

Parking is free.

Also, while the hotel is kind of in an industrial area, outside the parking lot of the hotel there's a McDonalds that has a 24 hour drive thru (aka "McDrive").
Since the airport has a convenience store inside, we ended up buying fresh bread and apple juice pretty much every night on our way to the hotel.

Cons and quirks

We really liked staying there, and we would probably stay there again, but we did have 2 small issues.

Because the hotel is next to the airport, and Schipol is a 24 hour airport, you can hear planes coming and going all day long.
The room had nice sound insulation, but you can only do so much when a 4 engine double decker airplane takes off from just a few blocks away.
This was rarely an issue after 11pm though.

The second issue was the electrical power inside the room. The room requires you to put your hotel room key in a little slot by the door, and keep it there in order for the electricity to work. If you removed the key, the bathroom lights would not turn on, and all of the electrical outlets would lose power.
This meant that the mini fridge would be slightly cooler than room temperature when we came back to the hotel room at night, and leaving a phone charging during the day didn't really work.
We got a second hotel room key just for this, but the cleaning crew removed it every day.

Other hotel options

Stay at the Marriott in downtown Amsterdam. It was listed for only €600 a night!

I'm kidding.

Right next to the Bastion Airport hotel was the Best Western. This was in the same parking lot and even shared the hotel shuttle. I believe the price for that hotel was only a few bucks more a night.

Also, around the area of the Bastion Airport hotel there were a few other hotels, similar to how most US cities have a bunch of hotels together in the same area next to an airport.
Shuttles from these hotels to the airport were all in the same 30 minute range, and had the same stopping area at Schipol airport.

Beyond hotels

When we started looking for a hotel room we also looked at Airbnb and HomeAway.

HomeAway was a little too expensive for us, and we didn't really feel like cleaning up the place every day, so we ignored that option pretty quickly. Besides, it was just me and my wife so renting a whole house was just too much.

However, Airbnb had a ton of great options.
Did you read the part about €600 euros for 1 night at the Marriott? That was true.
In Airbnb, you could find a single room, or a studio for under €80 a night in downtown Amsterdam.
Some places offer some nice perks, like letting you use a bike for free, a scooter for free, or free homemade breakfast.

$70 dollars a night in downtown Amsterdam is hard to beat

Airbnb also offered an amazing and unique option:

A whole boat house for rent. SERIOUSLY!!

Canal boat houses! (sure, it might be impractical for everyday living, but as a tourist it sounds awesome!)

Think about it. Your fancy friend stayed at a golf resort in Hawaii this Summer? That's cute.
YOU STAYED IN A BOAT IN AMSTERDAM!
Try to top that one off...

So why did we not stay in a place from Airbnb (more specifically, a boat house)?
Because in the price range we had settled for us we were unable to find anything with complete privacy, and without sharing a bathroom.
Also, we were already planning on renting a car to tour the countryside of The Netherlands, so parking in downtown Amsterdam was really not a possibility.

Lastly, we have never stayed anywhere with Airbnb, so trying it for the first time in another country with a different currency raised a lot of concerns for us.

There you have it. Staying in Amsterdam can be as affordable as Las Vegas or southern California, and it could be ridiculously awesome.

I hope it help!