A traveling preference of mine: I love a nice layover. Especially if I am traveling somewhere far; a long layover can be both fun and healthy. When I decided to go to the UAE, I found a flight that left NYC late at night (9:45 PM), dropped me off in Amsterdam for an entire day (10AM-9PM), and brought me to the Emirates early in the morning (6:45AM).

Why did I do this ? Well, I lost virtually no travel time because all my flights were at night. I got to see an additional country. I was well rested and needed a break from my first long flight. And, it luckily was a cheaper option.

Amsterdam is a small city. I don’t see it taking more than a couple of days to see everything on foot. We took the green line canal boat that took us in a circle around the entire city & we saw all of Amsterdam’s famous landmarks.The boat took around 1.5 hours and it makes stops along the way so you have the option of getting out to explore.

It cost us 7€ to take get on this first class train cart. The ride from the airport to the center was about 15 minutes. Oh, and nobody checked our tickets.

We arrived at the Central Station and walked to the Rijksmuseum (the first pic of this post). We walked for about 40 minutes.

There are over 160 canals running through Amsterdam. It’s absolutely stunning. The boat ride had an automated tour guide on the loudspeaker which helped us navigate as we toured Amsterdam. The canal boat was fully covered and warm inside. A BIG plus.

Had some “pancakes and bacon” for breakfast before heading out to the coffee shop. To each his own right ? Either way they were delicious.

The Bulldog is the benchmark for contemporary coffee shops in Amsterdam. Although there are plenty more smaller and low key places where you’d find more locals. Since we were very touristy, we came here. There was food, alcohol, tobacco, well and you know the rest … all under one roof. (Better to go there early in the day so you can air your clothes out. not like I did. Getting on my next flight was nothing short of AWWWWKWARD).

Sorry if you’re reading this mom ?

We walked around for more than 6 hours and we saw A LOT. Below is a store in the Red Light District. Lets just say that things started to get very interesting!

Our intentions were not to visit museums or shopping centers. Realistically, we would need another day or two for that (perhaps even more, depending on who you ask). In Amsterdam, we were all about the visuals. We walked around for more than 6 hours and took the canal boat for another 2 hours. We saw everything we wanted to see.

Below is the Anne Frank. The line can be up to two hours long so on a layover this is not the best place to go to because a lot of time would be wasted. However, the green line canal boat will sail past it, and it can drop you off here as well.

On this [relatively] short layover, we saw everything we wanted to see. In total, we spent about $70 Euro’s or $75 USD. Because this was the beginning of November, the weather was chilly. We actually got lucky because the day we came was the only day it didn’t rain that week. Because this city is small enough to cover on foot, it’s probably best to visit during the warmer months so it’s comfortable to walk around.