Amsterdam

This post includes my opinions and experiences of: staying, going out, eating, things to do in Amsterdam and a paragraph on my stay. Enjoy 🙂

Price: on average Amsterdam cost us around 21 Pounds (GB) per day of spending money.

Staying in Amsterdam: 

We stayed in the Hans Brinker hostel which cost us around 21 Pounds (GB) a night (we booked six months in advance). The hostel was very social as it had its own bar (it's cheap!) and we met a great group of people on our first night there who we proceeded to see for the remainder of our stay in Amsterdam. It also has its own club (however we didn't go in it). The hostel also has a free breakfast before 10. The hostel is about a 25 minute walk from the station however is still in a great area and is near enough to all the main attractions. The downsides to this hostel were the small rooms and lack of air conditioning, the bathrooms were clean however the shower is not great and bit of our ceiling fell into our shower which wasn't great. This hostel is not the nicest when your in your room but has a great atmosphere and lots of areas to relax that are outside your room.

Going out:

1. Chupitos (shot bar- small but great atmosphere)

2. Techno tuesday (we went to Melkweg, entry is free!)

3. Coffee shops (bulldog is well known and seems like a good place to start, if your not a regular smoker DO NOT go to prix d`'ami, smokeys is okay (busy atmosphere also lets you drink alcohol aswell).

Smokey- Coffee shop

REMEMBER: lots of coffee shops have a rule that you have to buy a drink as well.

What to do:

1. Hire bikes and cycle around (We got them for 4 hours which was perfect)

2. Go to the Jordaan district (really beautiful canals, near Anne Franks House)

3. Go to Anne Frank's house (costs 9 Euros)

4.Go to Vondelpark (there is a Lidl 5 minutes away, buy some cheap food and have a picnic!)

5.Go to a coffee shop

6. Visit the red light district 
7. Go to the Amsterdam sign (by the Rechistag museum) 
8. Go to the sex museum ($EURO 5)

optional- Dam square

Vondelpark with my 2 lil travel buds x

Where to eat:

Supermarkets (Lidl and albert heijn)

Maoz (big Falafel for $GB 5)

Picnic made from bits from Albert Heijin

My experience:

Amsterdam was our first stop on our interailing trip and none of us had ever stayed in a hostel before so we had no idea what to expect. But overall i thought Amsterdam was gorgeous, our experience there was highlighted by the great group of friends we made from our hostel. We were lucky that we made friends on the first night and that we were all there for the same duration. Although the canals are difficult to navigate, the beauty of the place makes it worth getting lost a couple hundred times (if using google maps navigate using street names but you will still get lost...trust me). We found the red light district to be quite small the first time we checked it out however with the help of our unofficial tour guides (our Irish roommates who explored the area quite often) we found it to be a huge web of lanes. Amsterdam has a little bit for everyone and although it dosen't have a huge to do list its unique charm is defiantly worth experiencing.

Budget Interail trip:
We went interlining for almost 5 weeks (34 days). We visited Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Budapest, Slovenia, Venice, Rome, Cinque Terre and Interlarken. Over this period of time we spent 19.80 Pounds (GB) on average (excluding accommodation and transport). However on top of this average spending money we did also purchase a ticket to Sziget festival, a canyoning day trip and a white water rafting day trip. Some of these days we spent barely anything as we were on a train the majority of the day and one of these days i got food poisoning so spent 4 euros! Overall we were on a budget so did eat a lot of supermarket food however we could of been a lot stricter and saved a lot more money by eating out less (near the end of our holiday we looked for the cheapest places but still ate out a lot!)