The 21 best free things to do in Amsterdam

27.07.2023 - 12:47 / lonelyplanet.com / Art

With its Golden Age canals, treasure-filled museums and cutting-edge art, entertainment and design scenes, Amsterdam is one of Europe's jewels, but it can be pricey.

Fortunately, you can find a surprising number of freebies, from art galleries to architecture and concerts in the Netherlands' capital, if you know where to look. These are the best free things to do in Amsterdam.

Roaming along the canals flowing through central Amsterdam (the city has more than Venice) is like being let loose in an open-air museum. A feat of engineering from the Dutch Golden Age, lined by tilting, gabled canal houses and spanned by quaint hump-back bridges, Amsterdam's 400-year-old waterways are a Unesco World Heritage site.

Planning tip: For the quintessential "seven bridges" snap, stand on the Herengracht in front of the Thorbeckeplein, looking down the Reguliersgracht. You can actually count 15 bridges in all directions. It's especially pretty at night.

In the up-and-coming, post-industrial neighborhood Amsterdam Noord, former shipbuilding warehouse NDSM Loods now contains more than 80 studios, where upwards of 250 artists unleash their imaginations. Exhibitions are displayed beneath the hangar's girders in its gallery space, NDSM Fuse.

Planning tip: Set aside at least a couple of hours to walk or cycle through the vast site. Free passenger ferries cross the IJ river from Amsterdam’s Centraal Station (you can take bikes on board for free).

Objects dating back as far as 2400 BCE were unearthed when the Noord/Zuidlijn metro line was dug beneath Amsterdam’s streets and waterways – among them medieval ice skates, Golden Age pottery, 19th-century pocket watches and buttons and 20th-century tech, such as early mobile phones. They're now displayed in glass cases at Rokin metro station's exhibit Below the Surface.

Planning tip: It's worth hopping on or off the metro at Rokin, a short walk from Amsterdam Centraal station, to see the displays (you'll need a transport ticket to access the station).

An Amsterdam secret – unknown even to many locals – is that the Renaissance and baroque gardens of its premier museum, the Rijksmuseum, are free and open to the public, along with occasional sculpture exhibitions held amid the greenery. 

Rising from the IJ river, Amsterdam's boat-shaped, green-copper NEMO science museum is a city landmark. Its 22m-high (72ft) roof terrace is Amsterdam's largest and was designed as a public square, with a sweeping panorama over the watery city below. It also offers the opportunity to interact with the elements at the open-air Energetica exhibition, via a control-it-yourself kite and a sundial.

Planning tip: At the summertime Cascade, splash around with 4000L (1057 gallons) of water pouring through 30 receptacles