25 min
15 min
50 · 51 · 1 · 5 · 7 · 12 · 13 · 17 · 19
8.2 / km²
4
2
3,090
+7% vs city
Counted from OpenStreetMap and Inside Airbnb (CC BY 4.0)
Staying in West
West starts where the canal belt stops, at the Singelgracht, and the useful part of it is a strip about 2 km deep: Oud-West around the Kinkerstraat and the Overtoom, De Baarsjes beyond it, and the Westerpark and Spaarndammerbuurt to the north. It is 19th and early 20th-century apartment blocks, some of the best Amsterdam School architecture in the city, and a bar and restaurant scene that fills up with locals on a weekday.
Practically, it works because of trams. Lines 1, 5, 7, 12, 13 and 17 all run through it, most of them via Leidseplein or Centraal, and the walk to Dam Square is about 25 minutes if you would rather. Rooms cost noticeably less than Zuid and roughly half of Centrum, and the Westergasfabriek and the Foodhallen give you somewhere to go in the evening without going back into the centre.
Two warnings. There is nothing historic to look at - almost all of it was built after 1870 - so every sightseeing day starts with a tram. And the borough gets worse the further west you go: the cheap hotels advertised as Amsterdam West near Sloterdijk station are cheap because the view is office blocks, and west of the A10 you are in Nieuw-West, which is a different proposition entirely.
What works
- Trams 1, 5, 7, 12, 13 and 17 all run through, most via Leidseplein or Centraal
- About 25 minutes on foot to Dam Square, flat the whole way
- Rooms cost roughly half of Centrum for the same standard
- The Westergasfabriek, the Foodhallen and the Kinkerstraat fill up with residents, not tourists
- The Amsterdam School architecture around the Spaarndammerbuurt is worth the walk itself
What does not
- No sights of its own: the district was almost entirely built after 1870
- Cheap hotels near Sloterdijk look out onto office blocks and nothing else
- Only metro 50 and 51 clip the edges, so most journeys are by tram
- The good strip is narrow - one tram stop too far west and the character stops
- Very few hotels in the old streets, so most of the stock is apartments
Sloterdijk is a booming business center and Intercity station with connections to Schiphol Airport and Amsterdam Central Station. You can find excellent hotels here for affordable prices, but views will consist entirely of modern office blocks.While often overlooked by foreign visitors, locals know that the west of Amsterdam has a lot to offer visitors. There's whole neighborhoods in unique 19th-century architectural styles, some of the best bars and clubs in Amsterdam, and the quickly gentrifying Oud-West.