Dutch trains run often, kids can watch the polders roll by, and nobody has to find parking. Every trip here starts with a train from Amsterdam and ends within a short walk, bus or tram of the station, most under an hour each way. Here's what we checked, from the working windmills at Zaanse Schans to Trix the T. rex in Leiden.
Haarlem is a historic city built around the Grote Markt, where the Grote or St. Bavo Church holds the Müller organ that Mozart played as a child.
Kids can tour Molen de Adriaan, a windmill on the Spaarne river, and look out over the old town from its gallery, then see million-year-old fossils and old scientific instruments at Teylers Museum, the oldest museum in the Netherlands.
A 9-kilometer stretch of North Sea sand running from Bloemendaal to Noordwijk, backed by dunes. Between February and October more than 30 beach pavilions line it, several with playgrounds, and five stay open all year.
Kids dig, fly kites and paddle in the shallows while lifeguards watch the north and south beaches in season. Sloping ramps from the boulevard make most entrances easy with a stroller.
This railway museum is built around a real station, Maliebaan, with platforms and halls full of historic locomotives.
Kids ride Steel Monsters, a cart on real rails through the dark past hissing engines, and Trial by Fire, a prize-winning attraction through 200 years of railway history. In the Techlab they close a circuit to move a train, pedal to feel its energy use and pull an emergency brake.
The Nijntje Museum is a hands-on museum for toddlers and preschoolers built around Miffy, the rabbit from Dick Bruna's picture books. Its 1,500 square meters of rooms are made for looking, touching and exploring on your own, the way Bruna's books invite kids to fill in the story themselves.
A 360-degree projection room plays a Miffy story every day, and weekends add an art studio and Sunday read-alouds.
Naturalis is the national natural history museum of the Netherlands, holding over 45 million objects. The galleries run from the Life hall, which climbs from ocean depths to a mountaintop, through Dinosaur age with Trix the T. rex, to Ice age, Earth and Evolution.
On the free ground floor, kids can watch researchers at work in LiveScience. The Rexperience adds a bumpy capsule ride back to the T. rex.
Madurodam shrinks the Netherlands' best-known sights into one walkable park. Container ships move through a model port of Rotterdam, the Cube Houses stand on the Blaak, and Amsterdam's canals are lined with hundreds of tiny bicycles.
Indoor attractions add hands-on play: kids help fire the cannons to defend Nieuw Amsterdam, the Dutch roots of New York, and try the interactive Dutch Masters and Waterwolf halls.
Zaanse Schans is a heritage village of green wooden houses and working windmills along the river Zaan. Kids can climb into an open mill to watch it saw timber or grind paint pigments, see clogs being made at the clog workshop, and taste cheese at the Catharina Hoeve farm. A windmill boat cruise and marked walking routes along the water round out the day.
Dutch trains run often, kids can watch the polders roll by, and nobody has to find parking. Every trip here starts with a train from Amsterdam and ends within a short walk, bus or tram of the station, most under an hour each way. Here's what we checked, from the working windmills at Zaanse Schans to Trix the T. rex in Leiden.
Haarlem is a historic city built around the Grote Markt, where the Grote or St. Bavo Church holds the Müller organ that Mozart played as a child.
Kids can tour Molen de Adriaan, a windmill on the Spaarne river, and look out over the old town from its gallery, then see million-year-old fossils and old scientific instruments at Teylers Museum, the oldest museum in the Netherlands.
A 9-kilometer stretch of North Sea sand running from Bloemendaal to Noordwijk, backed by dunes. Between February and October more than 30 beach pavilions line it, several with playgrounds, and five stay open all year.
Kids dig, fly kites and paddle in the shallows while lifeguards watch the north and south beaches in season. Sloping ramps from the boulevard make most entrances easy with a stroller.
This railway museum is built around a real station, Maliebaan, with platforms and halls full of historic locomotives.
Kids ride Steel Monsters, a cart on real rails through the dark past hissing engines, and Trial by Fire, a prize-winning attraction through 200 years of railway history. In the Techlab they close a circuit to move a train, pedal to feel its energy use and pull an emergency brake.
The Nijntje Museum is a hands-on museum for toddlers and preschoolers built around Miffy, the rabbit from Dick Bruna's picture books. Its 1,500 square meters of rooms are made for looking, touching and exploring on your own, the way Bruna's books invite kids to fill in the story themselves.
A 360-degree projection room plays a Miffy story every day, and weekends add an art studio and Sunday read-alouds.
Naturalis is the national natural history museum of the Netherlands, holding over 45 million objects. The galleries run from the Life hall, which climbs from ocean depths to a mountaintop, through Dinosaur age with Trix the T. rex, to Ice age, Earth and Evolution.
On the free ground floor, kids can watch researchers at work in LiveScience. The Rexperience adds a bumpy capsule ride back to the T. rex.
Madurodam shrinks the Netherlands' best-known sights into one walkable park. Container ships move through a model port of Rotterdam, the Cube Houses stand on the Blaak, and Amsterdam's canals are lined with hundreds of tiny bicycles.
Indoor attractions add hands-on play: kids help fire the cannons to defend Nieuw Amsterdam, the Dutch roots of New York, and try the interactive Dutch Masters and Waterwolf halls.
Zaanse Schans is a heritage village of green wooden houses and working windmills along the river Zaan. Kids can climb into an open mill to watch it saw timber or grind paint pigments, see clogs being made at the clog workshop, and taste cheese at the Catharina Hoeve farm. A windmill boat cruise and marked walking routes along the water round out the day.
