70 min
25 min
50 · 51 · 1 · 2 · 7 · 13 · 17
0.3 / km²
3
8
494
−14% vs city
Counted from OpenStreetMap and Inside Airbnb (CC BY 4.0)
Mixed after dark
Wikivoyage singles out Osdorp for violence and harassment, while noting that urban renewal has improved conditions. Treat the area as fine by day and worth a metro or tram rather than a walk after dark.
Staying in Nieuw-West
Nieuw-West is the Westelijke Tuinsteden, the western garden cities: post-1950 housing estates laid out around the Sloterplas lake, built to relieve the overcrowded old city. It is a functioning residential district of ordinary Amsterdam life, and it has no reason at all to appear in a visitor's plan.
It appears anyway, because it is cheap and because booking sites file it as Amsterdam. Metro 50 and 51 and trams 1, 2, 7, 13 and 17 run in, so the centre is 20 to 30 minutes away door to door and Schiphol about 25. That is genuinely workable if you are here for a week, on a tight budget, and prepared to treat the room purely as a bed.
What it costs you is every evening. Dam Square is over an hour on foot, so there is no walking home and no changing your mind at 23:00. There are no sights, the restaurants are neighbourhood places that close early, and Wikivoyage still flags Osdorp specifically over violence and harassment, with the caveat that urban renewal has improved things. If the saving over West or Noord is not large, it is not worth it.
What works
- The cheapest rooms anywhere inside the city boundary
- Metro 50 and 51 plus trams 1, 2, 7, 13 and 17 reach the centre in 20 to 30 minutes
- About 25 minutes to Schiphol, which beats most of the centre
- The Sloterplas lake and the Amsterdamse Bos give you real green space
- Ordinary supermarkets and everyday prices, which the centre does not have
What does not
- Over an hour on foot to Dam Square: you are never walking home
- Nothing to see - it is a housing estate built after 1950, and it looks it
- Restaurants are local and close early, so evenings mean travelling back in
- Osdorp still carries a reputation for violence and harassment after dark
- The saving over West or Noord is often small enough not to be worth the commute
Nieuw-West (especially Osdorp) and Zuidoost still have a bruised image regarding violence and harassment. Urban renewal projects have improved conditions, but you should still be aware of the situation.After 1950, construction works began on a large residential area west of the motorway A10. They were called the Westelijke Tuinsteden, but are now administratively part of the borough of Nieuw-West ("New West") and usually called out by that name.