Teenagers can smell a kids' outing from a mile away. These are the plans that get a yes: street art in old shipyards, escape rooms and VR games, a swing over the edge of a tower, and a day out on proper roller coasters. Some are a thrill, some are a quiet afternoon in a museum they'll talk about later. Here's what we checked, from NDSM Wharf to Walibi Holland.
NDSM Wharf is a former shipyard on the IJ, now a 10-hectare open site of artist studios, exhibition spaces, waterfront cafés and large public artworks. Kids can wander between graffiti-covered buildings, giant colorful sculptures and the old shipyard crane, and shoot hoops on the 3x3 basketball courts.
It suits curious older kids more than toddlers looking for a playground.
A'DAM Lookout fills the top two floors of the A'DAM Tower, 100 meters above the IJ. A lift with light and sound effects climbs 20 floors in 20 seconds to an indoor deck with binoculars and a rooftop skydeck with a 360-degree view over the canals and polders. Add-ons include 'Over the Edge', a swing that arcs out past the roof edge, and a 2.5-minute VR ride.
STRAAT is a museum of street art and graffiti in an industrial warehouse on the old NDSM shipyard. More than 180 works by over 170 artists fill the vast hall, and the display changes as new pieces join the collection.
On some days artists paint live, and workshops teach graffiti techniques so kids can make a piece of their own. It suits kids who like big, loud color more than quiet galleries.
Nxt Museum shows new media art: room-sized light, sound and video installations that visitors walk through, sit in or lie down under. The current show, Pioneers of Media Art, runs through 10 spaces, pairing early video art from the 1970s with works by present-day studios.
The rooms are dark, with flashing lights and loud sound, which some kids love and some find too much.
Backspace runs a set of themed escape rooms near Sloterdijk. The Time Machine is built for children: 8 to 15 kids play as one team, splitting into small groups to crack puzzles and fix a broken time machine, with a game master in the room giving hints.
Families can also book Budapest Express or Mindcrime, where staff turn the lights up and the sound effects down for younger players.
The Park Playground is a free-roam virtual reality arena in a business complex at the Houthavens. Groups put on wireless headsets and walk around a shared play field together, solving puzzles in an Egyptian pyramid, cracking an escape room or teaming up on a space mission. Hosts brief each group before play, and a bar serves drinks and snacks afterward. Younger kids get fewer choices, since most games include mild scares.
Live actors in period costume lead visitors through eight interactive shows covering 750 years of Amsterdam's darkest history, with full sets and special effects.
Groups of up to 30 move from room to room, and the actors pull people from the crowd into the scenes. It is dark and loud, with jump scares, so it suits kids who like a fright and laugh it off afterward.
The museum fills the canal house where Anne Frank and seven others hid from July 1942. Visitors climb steep stairs, pass behind the bookcase into the Secret Annex, and see Anne's room with the movie-star pictures she glued to the wall, plus her original red-checked diary.
The annex stays unfurnished at Otto Frank's request. The story is told through quotes, photos and video, and some images are hard to watch.
Body Worlds shows real human bodies preserved by plastination, a process invented by anatomist Gunther von Hagens, across seven levels on Damrak. The current exhibition, The Happiness Project, links what goes on inside the body to mood and health: hearts, lungs, nerves and muscles laid open, plus whole figures posed mid-movement.
The bodies are real, so it suits curious older kids more than squeamish ones.
Moco is a private museum of modern and street art in Villa Alsberg, a 1904 townhouse on Museumplein opposite the Rijksmuseum. Rooms show Banksy, Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Yayoi Kusama and KAWS, with works changing in rotation.
The digital and immersive rooms, full of mirrors and light, are the part kids tend to remember. Outside, the Moco Garden has sculptures by Banksy and KAWS.
A treetop rope park in the Amsterdamse Bos, with 10 courses strung between the trees at different heights. Kids stay clipped to a safety cable from start to finish while they cross rope bridges, a slackline and ziplines.
The easiest routes start 2.5 meters off the ground; the hardest ends with a free fall. Parents who don't climb can walk the paths underneath and cheer.
Monk is a bouldering hall: short climbing walls with no ropes or harnesses, over thick crash mats, with routes for first-timers up to strong climbers.
On Saturdays an open youth training takes non-members of any level, and trainers give each kid tips. Parents who don't climb can watch from the café, which looks onto the walls. Changing rooms, showers and free lockers are on site.
WONDR is a play attraction built for adults that welcomes kids with a grown-up. Fifteen themed rooms across 1,200 square meters hold what it calls Europe's largest ball pit, a pool of pink marshmallows, a confetti shower, a room of disco balls and fluffy karaoke booths. Cameras in each room send photos and GIFs to your inbox. It suits kids who like to jump and pose.
Walibi Holland is a big theme park in Biddinghuizen, about an hour's drive east of Amsterdam, with around 40 rides. Teens head for thrill coasters like Goliath, Untamed and YOY THRILL.
Families share the Drako coaster, the Crazy River log ride, tea cups and the El Rio Grande rapids, and younger kids get their own rides, such as Walibi's World Tour and Space Kidz.
Teenagers can smell a kids' outing from a mile away. These are the plans that get a yes: street art in old shipyards, escape rooms and VR games, a swing over the edge of a tower, and a day out on proper roller coasters. Some are a thrill, some are a quiet afternoon in a museum they'll talk about later. Here's what we checked, from NDSM Wharf to Walibi Holland.
NDSM Wharf is a former shipyard on the IJ, now a 10-hectare open site of artist studios, exhibition spaces, waterfront cafés and large public artworks. Kids can wander between graffiti-covered buildings, giant colorful sculptures and the old shipyard crane, and shoot hoops on the 3x3 basketball courts.
It suits curious older kids more than toddlers looking for a playground.
A'DAM Lookout fills the top two floors of the A'DAM Tower, 100 meters above the IJ. A lift with light and sound effects climbs 20 floors in 20 seconds to an indoor deck with binoculars and a rooftop skydeck with a 360-degree view over the canals and polders. Add-ons include 'Over the Edge', a swing that arcs out past the roof edge, and a 2.5-minute VR ride.
STRAAT is a museum of street art and graffiti in an industrial warehouse on the old NDSM shipyard. More than 180 works by over 170 artists fill the vast hall, and the display changes as new pieces join the collection.
On some days artists paint live, and workshops teach graffiti techniques so kids can make a piece of their own. It suits kids who like big, loud color more than quiet galleries.
Nxt Museum shows new media art: room-sized light, sound and video installations that visitors walk through, sit in or lie down under. The current show, Pioneers of Media Art, runs through 10 spaces, pairing early video art from the 1970s with works by present-day studios.
The rooms are dark, with flashing lights and loud sound, which some kids love and some find too much.
Backspace runs a set of themed escape rooms near Sloterdijk. The Time Machine is built for children: 8 to 15 kids play as one team, splitting into small groups to crack puzzles and fix a broken time machine, with a game master in the room giving hints.
Families can also book Budapest Express or Mindcrime, where staff turn the lights up and the sound effects down for younger players.
The Park Playground is a free-roam virtual reality arena in a business complex at the Houthavens. Groups put on wireless headsets and walk around a shared play field together, solving puzzles in an Egyptian pyramid, cracking an escape room or teaming up on a space mission. Hosts brief each group before play, and a bar serves drinks and snacks afterward. Younger kids get fewer choices, since most games include mild scares.
Live actors in period costume lead visitors through eight interactive shows covering 750 years of Amsterdam's darkest history, with full sets and special effects.
Groups of up to 30 move from room to room, and the actors pull people from the crowd into the scenes. It is dark and loud, with jump scares, so it suits kids who like a fright and laugh it off afterward.
The museum fills the canal house where Anne Frank and seven others hid from July 1942. Visitors climb steep stairs, pass behind the bookcase into the Secret Annex, and see Anne's room with the movie-star pictures she glued to the wall, plus her original red-checked diary.
The annex stays unfurnished at Otto Frank's request. The story is told through quotes, photos and video, and some images are hard to watch.
Body Worlds shows real human bodies preserved by plastination, a process invented by anatomist Gunther von Hagens, across seven levels on Damrak. The current exhibition, The Happiness Project, links what goes on inside the body to mood and health: hearts, lungs, nerves and muscles laid open, plus whole figures posed mid-movement.
The bodies are real, so it suits curious older kids more than squeamish ones.
Moco is a private museum of modern and street art in Villa Alsberg, a 1904 townhouse on Museumplein opposite the Rijksmuseum. Rooms show Banksy, Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Yayoi Kusama and KAWS, with works changing in rotation.
The digital and immersive rooms, full of mirrors and light, are the part kids tend to remember. Outside, the Moco Garden has sculptures by Banksy and KAWS.
A treetop rope park in the Amsterdamse Bos, with 10 courses strung between the trees at different heights. Kids stay clipped to a safety cable from start to finish while they cross rope bridges, a slackline and ziplines.
The easiest routes start 2.5 meters off the ground; the hardest ends with a free fall. Parents who don't climb can walk the paths underneath and cheer.
Monk is a bouldering hall: short climbing walls with no ropes or harnesses, over thick crash mats, with routes for first-timers up to strong climbers.
On Saturdays an open youth training takes non-members of any level, and trainers give each kid tips. Parents who don't climb can watch from the café, which looks onto the walls. Changing rooms, showers and free lockers are on site.
WONDR is a play attraction built for adults that welcomes kids with a grown-up. Fifteen themed rooms across 1,200 square meters hold what it calls Europe's largest ball pit, a pool of pink marshmallows, a confetti shower, a room of disco balls and fluffy karaoke booths. Cameras in each room send photos and GIFs to your inbox. It suits kids who like to jump and pose.
Walibi Holland is a big theme park in Biddinghuizen, about an hour's drive east of Amsterdam, with around 40 rides. Teens head for thrill coasters like Goliath, Untamed and YOY THRILL.
Families share the Drako coaster, the Crazy River log ride, tea cups and the El Rio Grande rapids, and younger kids get their own rides, such as Walibi's World Tour and Space Kidz.
