# Is Centrum a Good Area to Stay in Amsterdam? Map & Verdict

Verdict: Mixed. Fine for some travellers, wrong for others.

Interactive map: https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-amsterdam/centrum
Every Amsterdam district: https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-amsterdam.md

Everything you flew here for is inside a twenty-minute walk, and so is every stag group, every souvenir shop and the highest room rate in the country.

Facts: 5 min walk to Dam Square; 20 min to the airport; price €€€€; best for first-timers, sights, couples, nightlife; lines 51, 52, 53, 54, 2, 4, 13, 14, 17, 24.
Safety: Mixed after dark. De Wallen is heavily policed but rowdy after sunset, and the narrow lane north of the Oude Kerk is intimidating late. Leidseplein and Rembrandtplein carry the scams. Pickpockets work the shopping streets and trams all day.

Centrum is the medieval city plus the canal belt: the Binnenstad either side of the Damrak, the Grachtengordel ring of Singel, Herengracht, Keizersgracht and Prinsengracht, the Jordaan west of it and the Plantage out to the east. The whole thing is a semicircle with a radius of about 2 km, hinged on Centraal Station, and almost every major sight is inside it. You walk out of the hotel into the trip.

The bill comes in three parts. Money: three and four-star rooms run EUR 100 to EUR 200 a night, roughly double in summer, and the cheap end of the stock is old buildings with steep Dutch staircases and no lift. Noise: the Wallen, Leidseplein and Rembrandtplein are the city's nightlife and its tourist traps in the same streets, and a canal-facing room hears all of it. Crowds: the Damrak and Kalverstraat are shoulder-to-shoulder souvenir shops from mid-morning onwards, and the city council has spent years trying to reduce the pressure rather than add to it.

The district is not uniform, and the address matters more here than anywhere else in Amsterdam. West of the Damrak - the Nieuwezijde, the canal belt, the Jordaan - is the same walk to Dam Square, quieter, and better looking. East of it is De Wallen, where the cheap beds are. Book Centrum for a short first visit, ask which canal the window faces, and check on a map whether you have booked next to the Oudezijds Achterburgwal before you pay.

What works:
- Dam Square, the Anne Frank House and the whole canal belt within a 20-minute walk
- Centraal Station: Schiphol in 15 to 20 minutes by train, with no change
- Four metro lines and eight tram routes start or stop at Centraal Station
- The free ferries to Noord leave from behind the station every seven minutes
- The canal belt is a UNESCO site and looks it, at 07:00 with nobody in it

What does not:
- The most expensive beds in the Netherlands: EUR 100 to EUR 200 for three or four stars
- The Damrak and Kalverstraat are souvenir shops and crowds all day, every day
- Leidseplein and Rembrandtplein are the city's tourist traps, with prices and scams to match
- Cheap hotels here are narrow old houses with steep staircases and usually no lift
- De Wallen attracts vagrants and seedier visitors after sunset, two streets from good hotels

Hotels in Centrum: https://www.stay22.com/allez/booking?aid=stayzones&link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.booking.com%2Fsearchresults.html%3Fdest_id%3D145%26dest_type%3Ddistrict%26group_adults%3D2%26no_rooms%3D1

## Other districts in Amsterdam

- [Zuid](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-amsterdam/zuid): Recommended. Three top museums, the Vondelpark and De Pijp, ten minutes from Schiphol and fifteen from Dam Square. The safest borough in the city, and it knows it.
- [West](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-amsterdam/west): Recommended. Oud-West and De Baarsjes are Amsterdam at resident prices: 25 minutes on foot to Dam Square, five tram stops back, and no souvenir shops at all.
- [Oost](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-amsterdam/oost): Mixed. Around the Oosterpark it is a cheap, well-connected 25 minutes from the centre. Out at IJburg it is a different city, and the name does not tell you which you booked.
- [Noord](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-amsterdam/noord): Mixed. A free ferry from behind Centraal Station, four minutes across the IJ, and rooms at half the centre's price. What you give up is everything else.
- [Nieuw-West](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-amsterdam/nieuw-west): Avoid. The garden suburbs west of the ring road. Cheap rooms, a metro ride from the centre, and nothing whatsoever at your end of the journey.
- [Zuidoost](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-amsterdam/zuidoost): Avoid. The Bijlmer: an exclave 11 km out, 1960s tower blocks, the Ajax stadium and the concert-night hotels people book without looking at a map.