# Is Noord 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/noord
Every Amsterdam district: https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-amsterdam.md

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.

Facts: 15 min walk to Dam Square; 35 min to the airport; price €€; best for budget, quiet, solo travellers, longer stays; lines 52.
Safety: Mixed after dark. The waterfront and NDSM are fine. The post-war estates further inland have a rougher reputation, and the rural east is empty rather than dangerous. Check where the address actually is before booking a cheap room.

Noord is the far side of the IJ, and the crossing is the whole point. The ferries leave from a jetty behind Centraal Station, they are free, the busiest runs every seven minutes around the clock, and the ride is about four minutes. Metro 52 does the same trip underground with two stops in the borough. In practice you are ten to fifteen minutes from Dam Square door to door for a fraction of the room rate.

The waterfront strip has enough to fill an evening: the EYE Film Institute, the A'DAM tower, Tolhuistuin and a run of restaurants in converted industrial buildings. Fifteen minutes further west by ferry, NDSM is the old shipyard turned street-art quarter, with the STRAAT museum and a skate park. East of that, the borough turns into 1960s housing and then into open farmland with actual villages in it.

Wikivoyage is blunt that Noord has stayed off the tourist map and that its amenities are not well developed, and that is the honest case against it. There are very few hotels, the restaurant coverage thins out fast once you leave the water, the NDSM ferry only runs every half hour, and you cannot walk home - there is no footpath through the IJ tunnel. It suits a longer stay, a tight budget, or a second visit. It does not suit two nights and a list of museums.

What works:
- Free ferries from behind Centraal Station, every seven minutes, running all night
- Metro 52 reaches Centraal in about four minutes, with two stops in the borough
- Rooms cost far less than anything on the south side of the IJ
- The EYE Film Institute, Tolhuistuin and the A'DAM tower are on the ferry landing
- NDSM has the STRAAT street-art museum, a skate park and the old shipyard cranes

What does not:
- Amenities are thin: few hotels, and restaurants cluster on the waterfront only
- The NDSM ferry takes 15 minutes and only leaves every half hour
- You cannot walk to the centre at all - there is no pedestrian route under the IJ
- The eastern half is farmland and villages, 30 minutes from the ferry by bus
- The post-war housing estates inland are a long way from anything a visitor wants

Hotels in Noord: https://www.stay22.com/allez/booking?aid=stayzones&link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.booking.com%2Fsearchresults.html%3Fdest_id%3D146%26dest_type%3Ddistrict%26group_adults%3D2%26no_rooms%3D1

## Other districts in Amsterdam

- [Centrum](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-amsterdam/centrum): Mixed. 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.
- [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.
- [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.