Typical Amsterdam activities can feel a bit touristy for seasoned travelers. While the city’s red-light district or the beautiful bridges and boat canals are always going to be an essential part of the Amsterdam experience, here are some of our favorite unique things to do in Amsterdam that will help you experience the city like a local and feel the true spirit of Amsterdam and its lovely surrounding areas in 2022.
These things to do will be fun for travelers and might even surprise some locals with something different and out-of-the-box. Let me know which ones you enjoy in the comments below!
Before Visiting Amsterdam
Before you head to Amsterdam, you must know some things about this incredible city. This is the famous city where bikes have the right of way over people, with hundreds of canals, incredible architecture, iconic ‘coffee shops,’ and plenty of museums.
Amsterdam can get VERY crowded in the summer and quite cold in the winter. Many agree that it’s best to visit in the shoulder seasons, and also one of the best places to visit in Europe in June too. Make sure to check the weather before your trip!
Amsterdam has some iconic museums and attractions you can visit with the iAmsterdam City Card. Public transport is extremely efficient (although many choose to rent a bike) and Amsterdam is well connected with all of the Netherlands/Europe with busses and trains too.
Amsterdam is served by the massive hub of Schipol airport, which has many airlines that fly to many countries. If you want to explore Amsterdam on a layover, there are lots of reputable places to store your luggage in the city.
Mini Golf in the Dark
How many cities offer glow-in-the-dark mini-golf experiences to their visitors? The best thing about mini golf is that everyone can play it – you don’t need years of training to be decent at it. The glow-in-the-dark aspect adds an extra layer of excitement to the whole adventure, making the experience visually enticing and so much fun.
If you are in Amsterdam with a couple of friends or family, or maybe you are looking for a fun activity for a birthday celebration, this is a cheap and fun way to spend the evening as it only costs €8 for 45 minutes.
Food Tour in the Jordaan District
Food tours are often some of the best ways to experience a place and discover what gastronomy makes it unique, so I always recommend them! Getting away from. Jordaan is a more hipster area of the city and the absolute perfect place for a unique Dutch food tour.
Taste food at six or seven different places of all different kinds and flavors (yes, you heard that right – hello food coma). Of course you will also learn a bit more about the area in a more fun and tasty way!
Europe’s Highest Swing at the A’DAM Lookout
Did you know that Amsterdam is the home to the highest swing in Europe? Apart from being simply fun, the A’DAM Lookout swing also opens up to the city’s best view since it is located at the top of the A’DAM Tower. Swing over the entire city, with views of the canals, city, port, and more.
Now, the swing is not for the faint of heart! If you’re afraid of heights, you can skip the swing and still see the view from the safety of the sky deck, behind the railing/glass. But if you are a true adventurer, opt for this epic and unique 360 swing soaring over the city.
The A’DAM Lookout and many other museums, bikes, cruises, and transport are covered in the iAmsterdam City Card. Book One Here!
Learn Some Science at Micropia, the Microbe Museum
Yes, it’s true, there’s a museum all about MICROBES in Amsterdam. It’s weird, wonderful and so worth popping in to see what you find. It’s actually quite an enlightening visit as you would never guess (or think about) what a role microbes play in your everyday life, and how many places they live… in your food, as vitamins, and even on your body!
Learn about the roles of these tiny organisms and also see real scientists hard at work from the other side of a glass window. You’ll leave with a new appreciation for the unseen! (Also included in the iAmsterdam Pass)
Visit a Free Show at Vondelpark
Vondelpark is a beautiful park located in the city, a common place to visit in Amsterdam. But for one of the more unique things to do in Amsterdam, visit a show there in summer.
This time of year it turns into an Open light theater or “Opnelichttheater ” as the locals call it. During the summer, you will find various shows, workshops, Cabaret performances, and other events under the open light, as the name would suggest.
The park has its website where you can see the schedule for the upcoming shows, so make sure to go over it to find your perfect Opnelichttheater show.
Visit Electric Ladyland, the “First Museum of Electric Art”
If a museum of electric art isn’t unique, I don’t know what is! This museum invites you to participate in rooms full of fluorescent art in all kinds of neon colors illuminated by backlights. You can also see what different materials and minerals look like in normal light compared to fluorescent light, and see different art pieces in a (literally) new light too.
Albert Cuypmarkt Street Market
People in Amsterdam specialize in farmers’ markets, and this attitude is best demonstrated at Albert Cuypmark. From Monday to Saturday, Amsterdam’s biggest market is in full swing from 9:00-17:00.
Albert Cuypmarkt is the biggest daily street market in Europe. It’s not only food, though; people sell second-hand items, clothing, art, decor, etc. It is a unique environment that will inspire you to shop locally and intentionally even after your Amsterdam trip.
Visit the Woonbootmuseum, House Boat Museum
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to live on a houseboat in Amsterdam, you can now do just that. Visit an early 1900’s houseboat whose owners have opened it up to the public along with plenty of information on the history of that particular houseboat and also houseboats in Amsterdam in general.
Check out a Music Festival
Amsterdam is one of the world’s music festival meccas, and there are dozens going on in and around Amsterdam during the summer months. From one-day events in the park to warehouse raves to three-day camping festivals, the Netherlands really have it all. Check out the best music festivals in the Netherlands to pland yours.
Check Out the Ice Bar
Speaking of unique things to do in Amsterdam, one of the most interesting destinations for locals and tourists is The Ice Bar. The temperature inside the ice bar never goes higher than -10°C. The bar serves a variety of ice cocktails, and the interior is unique and memorable.
Having to hang out in a freezing place helps break the ice, no pun intended. To get into the Ice Bar, you will need a ticket. The bar offers a variety of ticket packages for clients to choose from. One of these packages can get you an entrance ticket in addition to a cocktail and 2 beers for under €20.
Rijksmuseum Faily Game
The Rijksmuseum houses over 400 masterpieces from artists like Vermeer, Rembrandt, Jan Steen, and Frans Hals to showcase masterful and iconic art throughout the centuries. But, it’s one of the most well-known things to do here. For something more unique, try getting together with your family and friends to play the Rijksmuseum Family Game.
This game will make exploring the museum SO much more fun as you search for different quests throughout the museum experience with your own rented device. Find the secrets of the Rijksmuseum that have been hiding in plain sight!
The Windmill Tour
Windmills are an essential part of the Dutch landscape. That’s why it’s not surprising that there is also a 3-hour bike tour of the windmills, considering that country is probably the most bike-friendly in the world.
But if the 3-hour bike tour sounds a bit too exhausting for you, you can also take a Bus tour with the Canal cruise. The bus tour will take you to Zaanse Shans windmills, and the best part is that it is free! You can explore the Dutch countryside and leave the noisy city behind for a few hours. You can even hit up one of the famous Dutch cheese farms there.
Fly High at the THIS IS HOLLAND 5D Flight Experience
Book a spot in advance to check out what is SURELY one of the most unique things to do in Amsterdam… a 5D flight experience! This epic ride takes you up above a spherical screen and makes you feel like you are TRULY flying over different locations in the Netherlands in very high definition.
The 9 minute experience shows you over 20 different locations in the Netherlands and shows you a journey through past and present Dutch landscapes and culture.
Be Mortified at the Torture Museum
The torture museum is surely one of the most… interesting things to do in Amsterdam, and it’s exactly what it sounds like. This museum goes through all kinds of methods of torture that have been used throughout history. Some are brilliant(ly scary), some are just gruesome, and some are unexpected. You’ll have to visit to see for yourself!
Keukenhof Garden – The Famous Tulip Gardens
This last one is also technically outside Amsterdam, but it only takes an hour to get there, so you can go to the Keukenhof Garden during the day and still go out to party in Amsterdam in the evening. Keukenhof is one of the largest spring gardens in the world, and if you love nature and can appreciate beautiful scenery, it’s a must when going to the Netherlands.
There is a direct bus from the city center to the gardens. To make the experience more enjoyable, you can also get a skip-the-line ticket to see the gardens without waiting in long lines. These gardens can get pretty crowded, especially in the summer.
How to Stay Safe While Traveling Through Amsterdam
Like any popular tourist destination, Amsterdam has its fair share of scammers and pickpockets trying to make some money by taking advantage of inexperienced when going to crowded places; something to keep places is to carry a bag you can see and hold easily.
Backpacks are great for long roads, trains, and bus rides, but if you are going to a crowded bar, like, for example, the Ice Bar, it’s best to get a belt bag or something of a similar style.
Apart from that, it’s important to start prioritizing digital safety. Most of us use Google Maps to get around a new town, look up popular cafes, and make plans for the evening. This also means that we are using public Wi-Fi at least from time to time.
This is especially dangerous when you go to a tourist-heavy city like Amsterdam, where scammers know that visitors will need to use public Wi-Fi, and they will most likely do that in the city’s busiest places. To keep using public Wi-Fi without giving access to your connection to hackers, use a VPN when surfing the web so that no one can access your personal details through an unsecured network.
Was that enough ideas for unique things to do in Amsterdam? Is there any more I should add to the list? Let me know in the comments below!
Passionate, full-time travel blogger with over 230k on social media and 150kMPV blog. Extraordinary photographer with two DSLR's + a drone with a love for capturing candid moments, epic drone shots, and magical compositions. I'm a natural-born content creator originally from California, but I've been on the road for 9 years living, working, traveling, blogging, and photographing my way around the world. I recommend the most amazingly adventurous and unique + boutique travel experiences/stays and helpful products to my audience and write comprehensive guides on my website that have helped millions of travelers so far. I love to inspire people to plan their dream trips, and many readers have given feedback as such. The reach on my platforms continues to soar, especially when combining cutting-edge social content with optimized articles on my high-authority website.