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

Verdict: Recommended. Book here without thinking about it.

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

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.

Facts: 25 min walk to Dam Square; 15 min to the airport; price €€; best for food, couples, longer stays, solo travellers, budget; lines 50, 51, 1, 5, 7, 12, 13, 17, 19.

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

Hotels in West: https://www.stay22.com/allez/booking?aid=stayzones&link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.booking.com%2Fsearchresults.html%3Fdest_id%3D153%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.
- [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.