This was for our April - May 2016 trip.
There are primarily 3 ways to travel and move around The Netherlands:
- Bicycle or scooter motorcycle
- Car
- Public Transportation
Note: you may want to also read what I learned about money in Europe. It will help you when purchasing tickets or renting a car or bikes.
Riding Bicycles or scooters
This is what the locals do!Riding bikes is by far the most popular way to travel in The Netherlands, and at least in Brugge (that I know of).
In most cities the bikes have a dedicated lane on the road, so you don't have to go around cars. This also means that whatever traffic jam the fools in cars are dealing with, you're not having any of it.
Scooters also share most bike lanes, and as scary as that sounds, they go pretty slow and don't really create any issues for bicycles.
We never rented a scooter so I don't really know their cost.
The cost of renting a bike in The Netherlands varies from €5 a day, to €20 a day. This depends on what kind of bike you get and where you rent them. The most expensive cost we found was in Brugge at €10 for 4 hours, on the right side of the train station.
Bike rentals are all over the place in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Brugge. Usually there are bike rentals around the train stations, so you just get off a train and go rent a bike. (Note: in Amsterdam they are across the canal from Amsterdam Centraal)
All bikes come at least one lock or a chain, so you usually don't have to pay extra for that either.
Most bikes are cruiser type of bikes, and aside from their goofy looks, they are super easy to ride and very comfortable.
Every city is highly dense, which mean most locations of interest are within a few miles of each other. Add to that the fact that most of the region is flat as a pannenkoeken, and you'll quickly realize why biking is the preferred method of transportation.
Tip: make sure you carry cash when you rent, or return a bike. There's usually a deposit fee (of about €50 per bike) you will need to pay when renting the bike. Some locations accept credit cards for the deposit, but require cash for the rental payment, and some accept credit cards for the rental but require cash for the deposit. Yes, it's weird.
Car
The country of The Netherlands is actually very small. You probably knew that, but it was kind of surprise for us how small it really was, and what the locals consider going from one city to another.For example, Amsterdam and Haarlem are considered as 2 different cities, but in a car you can get from Amsterdam to Haarlem within 30 minutes.
Amsterdam to The Hague was around 40 minutes.
The biggest benefit of renting a car was the ability to visit multiple small towns in the dutch country side. This would've obviously been possible on public transportation as well, but it would've taken much longer to go from a town square to the train station in one of the smaller towns.
Car rental in The Netherlands is super cheap. We rented a car for 4 days, and with taxes and everything we had a final price of $101 dollars.
With that though, our car became a huge problem for us.
Parking throughout Holland was a pain. Finding a spot, even in newer cities like Rotterdam, was hard and every time we parked we had to pay a usual rate of €4 (euros) per hour.
On top of that, gas was at about €1.50 per liter (there are 3.8 liters in a gallon).
Also, the actual driving was extremely difficult and stressful. Amsterdam, and cities around it, were built hundreds of years ago so the streets are extremely narrow, and one-way. In these narrow streets you have buses, cars, bicycles, scooters, tourist jaywalking, and parked cars on one side of the street.
So, all things considered, renting a car was only an advantage over public transport and biking when we wanted to go to multiple country-side towns in the same day, had to go do laundry, or take all of our luggage from Amsterdam to Rotterdam.
For daily usage we had avoid running over somebody, figure out new traffic signs on the fly, park far away from wherever we wanted to go to, and pay a ton for parking. Just a horrible idea.
One final thing about driving a car in The Netherlands: all road signs are in Dutch. This means that I may, or may have not driven into bus only lanes against traffic. I'm not even sure yet.
Public Transporation
Unlike the western US, European countries seem to have been designed for public transportation, and The Netherlands is no exception.Big cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague have multiple ways of public transportation, which include Bus, Tram, "Sprinter" (metro), Train and Taxis. You can even throw Uber and Lyft into the mix.
Buses, Tram, Sprinter and Trains all belong to the same company with the exemption of Thalys (the super fast train between large cities in Europe).
Let's talk about how to travel within a city first.
We used intercity public transport in both Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Both of these cities offer an all day pass, which allows you to use Bus, Tram, Sprinter and Train as much as you want.While I don't remember the cost of the all day passes in Rotterdam, in Amsterdam this all-day pass costs:
- €15 for 1 day
- €20 for 2 days
- €25 for 3 days
However, once you use it 1 time in that day you would have activated the pass for that day, and it will only last until 4am of that night.
In other words, if you activate your card at 10pm, it will only work from 10pm to 4am and it will count as 1 day.
Tram is a light weight train at ground level that covers most of each city, with stops every other block, and comes by within 5 minutes.
Sprinter is faster train (above the street and underground) with but less stops. This also covers city outskirts not covered by tram.
Train is a much larger and faster machine that you'll only use for Amsterdam Centraal to Schipol airport, or to another city. It has just 1 or 2 stops inside each city.
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| Sprinter and Train accept bicycles inside. |
Traveling between cities
Our travels included Rotterdam to Amsterdam, Rotterdam to Zoetermeer, Rotterdam to The Hague and Rotterdam to Brugge in Belgium.Rotterdam to Amsterdam was the easiest one. You go to Rotterdam Centraal and get a ticket to Amsterdam Centraal, or Schipol airport. Both cost around €30 each way and it took about an hour.
Rotterdam to Zoetermeer was about €25 round trip, but we took our bikes with us, making the cost be about €40 round trip. We found out that carrying a bike in the train requires a supplemental bike ticket.
Also, the Zoetermeer Oost station (the one we used to go to the LDS temple in The Netherlands) does not have a way to purchase tickets, and it looks like its in the middle of nowhere, so make sure you show up with a ticket to the station.
Rotterdam to The Hague was part of the Rotterdam to Zoetermeer trip. From Rotterdam there is not a direct train line to Zoetermeer, so we had to go through The Hague and change trains.
Since the round trip ticket was valid for all day, we decided to get out in The Hague on the way back and ride our bikes to the beach by Duindorp. This was a 20 minute bike ride from the train station of Den Haag (The Hague) Centraal.
Rotterdam to Brugge is a different story. You can purchase tickets for the regular train, or you can go with Thalys, which is the fast train.
However, both options require changing trains in Antwerp, Belgium. Since you have to change trains, and you'll have to wait for the connecting train in Belgium, the total trip time could be from 2 hours each way on Thalys, to 3 hours and 30 minutes each way on the regular train.
Since the connecting time could also be shorter, the regular train could also take as short as 2 hours and 30 minutes. It all depends at what time of the day you go.
One thing about Thalys though. Purchasing a ticket on Thalys gives you a ticket for a specific time and specific seat. This means that if you miss your train, you lose your ticket.
Same thing with going home early.
The "slow" or regular train can be used at any train throughout the day, and you can get off at any station.
Tickets for all types of public transportation can be bought at the large train stations (Central stations of each city), and online. I believe the multi-day passes in Rotterdam and Amsterdam can only be purchased in person at the Central stations (and they come with a free city map!)
Our trip from Rotterdam to Brugge round trip was about €190 euros per person on Thalys, and about €90 per person on the regular train.
Thalys tickets can be purchased online here: www.thalys.com
Regular train tickets can be purchased online here: www.ns.nl/en
Tip: Google maps gives you directions, and train time information so make sure you have that installed on your phone when you go.
Also, Google Chrome on computer and mobile allows you to translate websites from Dutch to English. It doesn't always work, but it can be very useful.
Useful things when traveling by train
Stop signs
One of our main issues was figuring out how train signs for at the stations. For example, we had issues going to Zoetermeer because the signs didn't say "Zoetermeer" in big letters, only things like "Rotterdam" or other bigger cities.Once we figured it, it was pretty easy. Here's a picture explaining the main elements of a sign:
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| click on picture to expand |
Wifi in the train
Most trains have Wifi in them. Don't expect some super fast connection, but at least it is good enough to check emails and read stuff online to kill time while traveling.One of the most useful things though is that when connecting to the train's Wifi you can also see the upcoming stations and the arrival time.
This can be very useful tool for figuring out if you're on the right train, and if you need to get up soon or not.
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| Just connect to the free 'WiFi in de trein' |
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| Get info about your particular train |
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