30 min
10 min
50 · 51 · 52 · 2 · 4 · 5 · 12 · 24
4.9 / km²
10
7
2,028
+19% vs city
Counted from OpenStreetMap and Inside Airbnb (CC BY 4.0)
Staying in Zuid
Zuid is where most people should sleep. The Museum Quarter puts the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh and the Stedelijk side by side with the Vondelpark behind them; De Pijp, twenty minutes east, is the Albert Cuyp market and the densest run of restaurants and bars in Amsterdam that is not priced for tourists. Metro 52 gets you from De Pijp to Centraal in about six minutes, and Amsterdam Zuid station is roughly eight minutes from Schiphol, which no other borough can match.
It is also the one borough Wikivoyage calls perfectly safe at night without qualification, and the reason is dull: it was built between 1870 and 1930 for the middle and upper classes and has stayed that way. Streets are wide, quiet after 22:00, and lined with the kind of shops that shut at 18:00.
The trade-offs are real. Museumkwartier rooms cost close to Centrum money without the Centrum walk, and the area empties the moment the museums close. The Zuidas, the office district around Amsterdam Zuid station, is convenient, cheap at weekends and completely dead on a Sunday evening. Buitenveldert, at the southern end, is a 30-minute commute from the centre and might as well be a different town. Book the Museum Quarter or De Pijp; look hard at anything further south.
What works
- The Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum and Stedelijk are within five minutes of each other
- Amsterdam Zuid station is about eight minutes from Schiphol by direct train
- Metro 52 runs De Pijp to Centraal Station in roughly six minutes
- The Albert Cuyp market and the De Pijp restaurants are priced for residents
- The Vondelpark starts here, and it is the one big park inside the ring road
What does not
- Museum Quarter rates are close to Centrum rates without the Centrum walking distance
- About 30 minutes on foot to Dam Square, so the tram or metro is a daily habit
- The Zuidas is offices: convenient, cheap at weekends, and dead on Sunday evening
- Buitenveldert and the southern edge are a proper commute from everything
- Nothing here is old - the borough is 19th and 20th-century, with no medieval streets
It's also where many visitors sleep, as it has a plethora of affordable accommodation options relatively close to the city centre.As most tourists only visit the city centre and Zuid, they do not have much to worry about except for the usual precautions (e.g. scams and pickpockets).