Despite some obvious considerations, Amsterdam works brilliantly for a vacation with children. The city has interactive museums designed to appeal to youngsters, canal boats and trams to ride, and bikes to hire.
With playgrounds in all the parks, kids’ shows in several theaters, and pancakes on almost every menu, there’s always something to do, even if it's pouring rain outside. (Fair warning, though: As anyone with toddlers will tell you, pushing baby strollers across all those cobbles ain’t much fun.)
Here are five of the most rewarding things to do in Amsterdam with kids.
A'Dam Lookout
Kids love swings, so how about letting them take on Europe’s highest, 100m (318 ft.) up? Accessed from the A’Dam Tower’s panoramic deck on an additional ticket, the self-explanatory Swing Over the Edge offers quite a view—360 degrees across the city and beyond. Thankfully, you can also enjoy the same view without the sensation of dangling from a metal crane 21 stories above the IJ.
Note that you must be 1.2m (47 in.) tall to ride the swing.
Revamped as a culture, dining, and general fun hub, the tower (IJpromenade 4) itself dates to the 1970s, when it was designed by Arthur Staal for oil company Shell.
Nemo Science Museum
From Centraal train station, walk along Oosterdokskade to the regenerated eastern docks and the unmistakable pale green, ship-shaped building (Oosterdok 2) designed by Renzo Piano. Inside, it’s more play station than museum, a great place to go with younger kids on a rainy day.
The institution's mission is to introduce science and technology to kids in an understandable format, through games, experiments, and demonstrations. There’s even a lab for supervised experiments.
Renovated in 2025 and open to everyone, Nemo's broad, stepped living roof is an attraction in itself—a public space to hang out, catch the sun, and take in sweeping views over the docks and Muziekgebouw aan’t IJ concert hall.
Jewish Quarter & Anne Frank House
Depending on your children’s ages, you may wish to introduce them to some of the monuments or history of Amsterdam’s Jewish Quarter, a 15-minute walk from Nemo. The facts of what the Jewish community endured during the Holocaust can be upsetting for youngsters, of course, but it’s also important—if the kids are old enough to understand.
There’s inevitable sadness, but less in the way of graphic imagery, at the Hollandsche Schouwburg, a former Yiddish theater–turned World War II deportation site–turned memorial, and the Nationaal Holocaust Namenmonument, which bears the names of the 102,000 Dutch Jews killed by the Nazis.
The canalside Anne Frank House (Prinsengracht 263-267) in central Amsterdam (located in the Jordaan district, not the Jewish Quarter) doesn't permit visitors under age 10. But the museum does have resources for older kids as well as an audio tour designed for guests ages 10 to 15. The tour unfolds from the perspective of the teenage diarist who went into hiding with her family here during the German occupation of the Netherlands.
Artis Park
Amsterdam’s zoo (Plantage Kerklaan 38–40) opened in 1838 and covers more than 14 hectares (35 acres) of tree-lined pathways and landscaped gardens ringing with the calls of birds, lemurs, and monkeys. More than 900 animal species live here, where a 19th-century ambience combines harmoniously with a 21st-century emphasis on conservation and nature.
The free Artis app helps you navigate to see lions, jaguars, gorillas, elephants, and giraffes as well as feeding-time favorites such as the penguins and sea lions. Admission includes access to the zoo’s 3D Planetarium.
Micropia
The world’s first museum dedicated to microbes zooms in—all the way in—to show curious minds much more than meets the eye. We each carry more than 100 trillion tiny organisms in us, and this ingenious multimedia space (Plantage Kerklaan 38–40) shows their importance to every living thing on the planet, by way of bubbling tubes, video walls, magnifiers, and even a digital body scanner.
The preceding is excerpted from Frommer's Amsterdam Day by Day, available for preorder now.