Amsterdam by car

On driving in Amsterdam (do not) and the cheapest garages to park your car

Dutch highwaysign
On the A10 ring road, look for the "Park + Ride lots—labeled "P+R"—to leave your car at the cheapest garages in town and get a free lift into the city center.
Three words on driving in Amsterdam: don't drive in Amsterdam.

Take it from someone who has attempted to drive in the Canal Zone before: it is definitely not worth the trouble or aggravation. The tight, 17th century streets, broad pedestrian zones, omnipresent one-way systems, and hundreds of little bridges make it a confusing tangle of a mess.

It can literally take you half an hour to get from a given point A to a point B that, were you walking, are really only five minutes apart. Also, unless you're used to Dutch bike lanes and laws, you'll come close to killing the legions of local bicyclists approximately five times per block.

What's more, driving in Amsterdam is pointless. There is no practially no parking on the streets of central Amsterdam—at all. What little there is is expensive: €5 per hour Monday through Saturday from 9am to midnight and Sunday from noon to midnight.

It really is best to leave your car in a garage on the outskirts of the center. You have two choices:

For more on driving in Amsterdam: www.bereikbaaramsterdam.nl (in Dutch, but there's a choice to switch languages hidden halfway down the screen's right column).

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Unless otherwise indicated, all photographs © the Amsterdam Tourism & Convention Board

 


This article was by Reid Bramblett and last updated in May 2011.
All information was accurate at the time.


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Copyright © 1998–2013 by Reid Bramblett. Author: Reid Bramblett.