Amsterdam Don'ts ❌ What NOT to do in Amsterdam | Common mistakes tourists make and how to avoid them

hi everyone my name is beatrice and i'm an expat living in amsterdam [Music] if you are new to my channel i basically make videos about life in amsterdam as an expat and i have tons of videos about what you should do before moving here what life really is like in amsterdam so if you are interested in that type of content make sure to subscribe to my channel because you will be supporting me and also leave a like in this video and just before we start i just want to say i'm super happy it's currently march but the weather is already so nice it's been super sunny for the past few weeks and as you can see i already have some tulips in my house so i'm just very happy and in today's video we are going to be talking about what you shouldn't do when you come to amsterdam and just some very common mistakes tourists make so if you are coming to amsterdam make sure you watch this video until the end because i'll be talking about some of the most common mistakes and if you know beforehand you already know what you shouldn't do in amsterdam so actually the first tip i have for you is do not spend too much time in touristy places and for some reason i see that when people visit amsterdam they tend to go to the super touristy places which for me is the worst part in amsterdam seriously for me the worst street in amsterdam is the one that goes from the central station until the damn square you'll see that it only has souvenir shops fake museums and some tacky dutch stores that you really see that are only made for tourists so this is not a real amsterdam this street is just for tourists and the area around it is quite similar of course in the area around it you'll also find the red light district which is super touristy you can visit it once but i wouldn't spend too much time there also do not eat near by the damn square usually the restaurants there are not so good instead try to head out a bit further and then you'll find some of the best restaurants and if you are interested in knowing some nice restaurants in amsterdam make sure to follow me on instagram because i post a lot about that and if you visit my instagram page you'll see that i have a guide with my favorite restaurants and you'll see that none of them are in the damn square or near that area but yeah basically amsterdam has so much more to offer than that very small centrum so make sure you visit the other beautiful canals for example in the jordan area or maybe you can go to the pipe very hip neighborhood where you can have some really nice coffee at a local cafe and generally you can find much nicer places with local vibes so then you'll feel that you are actually in amsterdam and not in some really touristy place the second tip is please do not eat space cakes or edibles if you are not used to this what i see is that many people come to amsterdam and they are not used to smoking wheat but just because they are in amsterdam they think they have to try it well let me tell you this is not the case if you are not used to smoking weed or if you don't want to do it please don't feel pressure to do so it will not make you better than anyone else or fit in the society more like that's not the case usually most locals don't even smoke wheat so that's fine and what usually happens is that people who are not used to smoking wheat end up having a space cake or brownie edible whatever because they think it's less harmful than smoking wheat but actually that's not the case i have had many friends coming here and all of them decided to try space cakes and believe me it did not go well this is because space cakes contain a huge amount of thc and because they go directly in your digestive system they take hours and hours to leave your system so basically you can get high for three hours or so and when you are smoking it doesn't last that long and it's not such a strong effect most of my friends ended up experiencing paranoia anxiety so really there is no point in trying that if you are going to feel bad if you don't like smoking uh then i would advise you to not do it just because you are in amsterdam but if you do want to try i'll advise you to smoke instead of having a brownie the third tip is don't go on those super tacky boats tours that you can find on the damn square and instead rent your own boats and go through the canals on your private boat i think i keep mentioning this in my videos but it's the reality riding a boat is so much fun in amsterdam and if you know how to ride it it's actually pretty simple then i would really advise you to hire boats instead of going on those super touristy boats that go around amsterdam i mean of course that's a nice alternative also but believe me it's so so much better to have your own boat you can bring your own speaker put some nice music bring a bottle of wine some nice tapas and just really enjoy the time with your friends of course you can only do this if it's sunny if it's raining then yeah the best is just to go on those boats tours but i think this is an admissible experience and actually it's not that expensive i usually book my boats in sloppy dolan and it costs 135 euros and i think it takes 10 or 12 people so you can really share the price with your group of friends uh but even if you are like a family of five that's like 25 euros per person so it should be fine and i assure you you will love that experience the fourth tip and please please listen me out on this don't ride a bike if you are not used to it and i know riding a bike sounds like the perfect dutch activity but do not forget that people here are locals and they use the bike as their means of transportation it's like it was their car they are not doing it because they enjoy it they are doing it to get to places such as their work their gym their school whatever and what this means is that bike traffic can get pretty hard especially in amsterdam because everyone is going somewhere on their bikes and if you are a tourist you are probably not used to this kind of traffic so there is no way to say this slightly but you will be getting underway of people who are trying to do their normal life because probably you'll be super slow or you'll do stuff that you are not supposed to do on the bike and that's normal because you are not used to it i mean when i moved here also you know really well how to ride a bike in this that traffic but i did my best to learn because i knew that i was going to live here but most tourists don't have enough time to actually learn how to ride a bike here so please don't do this unless you are an experienced bike rider what will happen is that a lot of people will ring their bell at you and probably curse believe me this happens a lot because people are super stressed wanting to get to their place so yeah don't do it and honestly i think that amsterdam is so much better walking because the city center is quite small and if you are on a bike you'll be stressed and you won't be able to take in the views because you need to be focused on riding your bike so yeah i would much rather advise you to just walk and stroll through the city center and really take your time to appreciate the beauty of the city the fifth tip is please do not drink alcohol on the streets because this is illegal in the center of amsterdam if the police catches you drinking alcohol on the street you risk paying a hefty fine and this will probably ruin your vacation and the reason why you do this is because as you can imagine the city center of amsterdam can get a bit wild taking into account the city's history and what it is known for that's why they do not allow people to drink on the street to avoid having more fights or drunk people doing stupid stuff so yeah please try to respect this rule also if you are drunk and you are in the city center remember that there are people living there so please do not make too much noise on the street one good way to avoid all of this is just to stick to bar stick to clubs because there you can drink you can make all the noise that you want and i'm sure that you'll also enjoy yourself there there are super super nice bars in amsterdam and also clubs outside the city center so make sure you go to these clubs and bars and have fun there the sixth tip and i already briefly mentioned this is do not go to the restaurants in the city center like right after the central station of course there might be some nice restaurants there but it's usually on the lesser-known streets so my point is that you can find so much nice restaurants in other areas in amsterdam and this would be for example uh jordan west coast the pipe ooze out so those are really nice places where you can find some really cool restaurants and the food will be so much better you'll see that in the center there are these like all you can eat ribs argentinian restaurants american fast food chains and this is not what you're looking for because amsterdam has so much more to offer in terms of food literally it is booming with new restaurants cool places to go to when to visit please ensure that you try to go to restaurants a bit outside the city center because that's where you'll find the best food and you will also be dining with locals instead of other tourists if you are interested in knowing more restaurants in amsterdam make sure to check my guide in instagram because there i talk about my favorite restaurants and i'll be probably making a new one soon because now that we are back to normal life and everything is open again i will be visiting more restaurants and i'll be updating uh that guide or just making a new one the seventh tip is please respect the tulips especially if you are coming here in april or may you might have the chance to go and see the tulips in lis and if you go there to tulip fields you'll actually see that it's super super beautiful i mean fields of tulips everywhere however what happens is that when people go to these fields they do not respect the gardeners and the private property and they get in the private property and of course this is not pleasant for the people who own those fields so please ensure that you can actually get there and if you do get there please don't take the tulips for yourself because those are planted there for some reason it's not for you to go there and remove them unfortunately i saw many people doing that and if you want to walk between the tulip field please be super careful because you can accidentally step on two lips and then you will kill the plan please be careful with that and another tip that i have for you is that tulips are super cheap in amsterdam if you like taking a nice photo for instagram you can buy your own bouquet of tulips this shouldn't cost more than four euros and then you can grab the bouquet and just take some photos with it in the canals they look super super beautiful with that so yeah here's a nice tip for you and finally my last tip is if you are coming to amsterdam and you have enough time don't stay only in amsterdam because actually amsterdam is quite a small city so i would advise you to also visit other cities nearby and the netherlands has so much more to offer than amsterdam also there is this really nice train system in the netherlands so you can get anywhere pretty fast even to belgium so i'll really advise you to go on a day trip somewhere personally my favorite place is to go on a day trip from amsterdam would be utrecht because it's super nearby and it's beautiful i mean the canals there are also amazing so i would really advise you to go there delft i think delft is probably one of the most beautiful dutch cities it's actually quite small the canals are also super beautiful and the hote market is also super nice there so i'll advise you to also go there if you have some time another day trip that i really like is in belgium i think this city is super super beautiful you have the advantage of being in a in another country and also you can try some belgium waffles and chocolate dodging beer i mean it's worth going there just for the food so yeah guys these are my don'ts of amsterdam i hope this was useful for you and that you remember this when you visit amsterdam i believe that if every tourist started doing this life would be better for locals in amsterdam and also i'm sure that you'll enjoy yourself a lot more if you don't do this stuff and follow my tips and if you want to see more tips make sure to subscribe to my channel and also follow me on instagram because there are posts a lot more frequently and yeah i hope to see you the next time

Channel: Beatriz Paula

Views: 81,238

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Id: R3hJdcUkNwM

Length: 12min 12sec (732 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 05 2022