A Visit to Amsterdam

Hello and welcome to All Things Travel. Amsterdam is a fabulous European city with so much to see and do; and it's also a great jumping off point for other destinations. 

Ryan recently returned from the "Venice of the North" and we're so excited to share this trip with you.  

Listen in with travel advisors and destination experts, Ryan and Julie. He is your travel professor teaching you everything you need to know to have a magical vacation. She's a Disney loving Maryland mom of three and a specialist in family travel. 

 Whether we're discussing  incredible destinations. top vacation tips, or sharing personal stories...It's always All Things Travel.   

Untethered & Wanderwise: Female Travel Over 45

A travel podcast for women over 45 who want to explore this big beautiful world.

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Want to cruise with Ryan and Julie in July 2025? Join our podcast cruise! Check out the details: https://forms.gle/Jpikq82XPQS63v5N8


~~~~~~~
Grab Ryan's free download for planning the ultimate family all-inclusive vacation: https://bit.ly/allinclusivevacationtoptips

Grab Julie's free download for a baby and toddler vacation packing list:
https://bit.ly/babytoddlerpackinglist


Ready to plan your vacation? Most families are confused and overwhelmed when planning a vacation. We work with you to plan a trip perfect for your family. Saving you time, money, and stress!

• Contact Ryan at ryan@creatingmagicvacations.com
• Contact Julie at julie@creatingmagicvacations.com

Join the travel conversations and the fun in our Facebook Page!

• Please share the show with your travel buddies!! Click this link and share the show!
• Never miss an episode and help us take you to the top with us by following and leaving a 5-Star review on your favorite podcasting app!

Chapters

• 8:20 [Ad] Untethered & Wanderwise: Female Travel Over 45
• 8:44 (Cont.) A Visit to Amsterdam

Transcript

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 0:00

Hello and welcome to All Things Travel. Amsterdam is a fabulous European city with so much to see and do, and it's also a great jumping off point for other destinations. Ryan recently returned from the Venice of the North, which is another name for Amsterdam. And we're so excited to share this trip with you. Listen in with travel advisors and destination experts, Ryan and Julie. He is your travel professor teaching you everything you need to know to have a magical vacation. And I am a Disney loving Maryland mom of three and a specialist in family travel. Whether we're discussing incredible destinations. Top vacation tips or sharing personal stories. It's always all things travel. So Ryan, welcome back from Amsterdam. It's been so long.

Ryan: 0:52

I know. So, a little inside baseball here. You know, we have an episode come out every week. But it's actually been a long time since you and I have sat down and recorded with each other. I feel like I have not seen you forever. I'm used to seeing you at least once a week.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 1:09

I know. I, I feel the same way. And since we knew this episode was coming up, I barely know anything about Ryan's Amsterdam trip. So I'm going to be learning right along with everyone else. I saw some pictures and

Ryan: 1:23

Some pictures, I think you saw a lot of pictures.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 1:26

see a lot of pictures and a lot of them were posted on the all

Ryan: 1:29

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 1:31

get to share them. And they were just beautiful. And I never thought I'd want to go to Amsterdam, but just seeing the pictures, I want to go to Amsterdam.

Ryan: 1:37

Spoiler alert, I loved Amsterdam. I love most European destinations I go to but Amsterdam was pretty darn cool.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 1:45

So a little bit of a backstory about Ryan's trip that I will give is that he was there for a travel agent conference that our agency had agents going to, and then he added on a river cruise with other agents from our agency. So. The opportunity was presented throughout the agency. And I remember being like, why would I want to go to Amsterdam and go on a river cruise?

Ryan: 2:08

And I'm

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 2:08

now I'm like,

Ryan: 2:09

can I go to Amsterdam?

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 2:11

right. And now I'm like, wow, that was really cool. It didn't really fit with my timeline of my routine and my little kids, but I'm so jealous. This trip looked amazing.

Ryan: 2:23

well in the conference that I went to Dealt exclusively with river cruises. And so if you listen to next week our april live had to do all about river cruising But I want to talk a second about the actual conference. Basically what they did julie was they had twelve different river cruise ships lined up outside the port of Amsterdam, the passenger terminal. The conference was in the passenger terminal, but then you could stay on the river cruise ships. You also visited all the river cruise ships through lunches, dinners, open houses. They had rooms open, you could travel around and see them. What I like to do is kind of see the different personality of each company. If I want to send somebody on Avalon, what's that going to be like? Or Viking, or Ama, or Riverside? How are these going to play out for my type of clients?

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 3:17

How awesome is that, that you now have all that firsthand knowledge for clients who want to river cruise to say, I know exactly what ship is right for you. And that's what makes our job so awesome. The biggest benefit of working with travel advisors. If you go to viking. com to book your cruise, you're only going to learn about Viking. If you come to a travel advisor, we know all the options and we're going to fit the right one for you. I think that's such an awesome experience you guys had.

Ryan: 3:47

Absolutely, and I will tell you there were river cruise companies. I knew very little if nothing about that Now i'm excited to share with clients because of that experience but let's talk about the amsterdam portion of it But before we get into Amsterdam, Julie, I want to remind folks that if they want to learn about a very different type of trip, this is a driving trip through the Pacific coast. They can go back to episode 209 last week and hear all about that amazing type of vacation. First of all, Julie, let's talk about getting to Amsterdam. I've been to Amsterdam multiple times before this trip. However, I really haven't, because in my mind, if you've just been to the airport, it doesn't count kind of like I've been to Germany like four or six times, but I've never been to Germany. And the reason I've been to Amsterdam multiple times is it is a super easy place to get to from most major airports in the United States. So for instance I flew directly from O'Hare. I don't think there was anybody in our group except those that came from the West Coast that didn't fly directly to Schiphol Airport.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 4:58

Nice. That's good to know.

Ryan: 5:00

yeah, absolutely. Getting into the city from there is super easy. Schiphol Airport, first and foremost, is one of the nicest European airports I've been into. It's very easy to navigate. Everything is in English and in Dutch. Very easy to, find things. We took the train, which has a station right there at the airport. I think it was like nine Euro took us right to the main central station. In downtown amsterdam, but obviously you can do taxis you can do ubers all that stuff very very easy skipple airport is outside town So you will have to do some sort of airport transfer. I also want to point out that Amsterdam itself is a great jumping off point, just like you said in the intro. Because it's, on the mainland of Europe, all right. The airport is fantastic. So you can get to anywhere from there. The trains are fantastic. In fact, I was trying to talk people into going to London or Paris on our free day that we have, but nobody took me up on it. And then obviously Amsterdam is also a great starting or ending point for river cruise. So really. You get to Amsterdam and you can get anywhere in Europe pretty easily.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 6:11

That sounds amazing. Ryan, tell us, before you went on your trip, did you exchange euros? And would you recommend doing that before you go?

Ryan: 6:21

Sure. So I had some Euros. I think I had about 25 or 30 Euros from a previous trip and I knew that would at least get me a cup of coffee and a sandwich. You know, the first day when we got there so that then I could hit an ATM.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 6:36

The necessities?

Ryan: 6:38

necessities, right? Yeah. I don't, I, the first thing I got in, in Amsterdam was a double espresso for good reason. Here's what, I have found recently going to Europe. Every place prefers credit cards, unless it is a mom or pop place, or you're going in and you're just getting a cup of coffee or a snack or something like that, credit card is easily accessible.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 7:00

So what about things like Apple Pay or Google

Ryan: 7:03

Oh, 100%. Yeah, absolutely. 100%. So for instance as part of a tour, I had a city pass for the streetcar one day, but every other time I just went through and I swiped my credit card going in and I swiped my credit card going out and they just charged my credit card. As needed. So I did get some some euros from the ATM and then use those throughout my trip, but I could have easily had very little cash and used my credit card. Now the second half I was on a river cruise, so I wasn't doing a lot of extra spending on food and accommodations and stuff. A lot of that had been prepaid. The one thing I will. The one thing I will say about ATMs anywhere, be savvy, just like you would in any major U. S. city, use an ATM that is attached to a bank in name only or physically attached to a bank. anything looks suspicious about the ATM, don't use it. If people are crowded around the ATM, that's not where you want to go. Also, when they ask if you want dynamic pricing, which basically means taking money in your own currency, I always say yes, because that tends to give you a better exchange rate.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 8:36

It's different when you're using a different currency. I just want to toss out there, I would think that you alerted your credit cards prior to going to Europe.

Ryan: 8:46

I didn't have to alert my credit card. I did get online to do that, and it said I didn't need to do it. I did alert my bank because I knew I'd be using my debit card, and my debit card is also kind of my backup credit card, if you will. And I did need to, let them know and so I went into the bank I couldn't find it online. Although they taught me where to do it for next time. I had no problem with that And i've never had a problem with that as long as i've let the bank know

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 9:11

Okay,

Ryan: 9:12

of time.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 9:13

good to know. Good to know.

Ryan: 9:14

So the city is well laid out. The city of Amsterdam is super easy to walk. I love the streetcar system that they have. We stayed by the main central station. So that was a really good hub to jump on streetcars and and get places, Google maps worked really well on my phone. So I could say, Hey, I want to get to here. And it would tell me jump on this streetcar. This is where you're going to go. The transport system in Amsterdam had their own app too. The only thing I will say, and, and the folks that went with me that are listening to this podcast will laugh. It took us a really long time after we got off the train from the airport to figure out how to get to our next train, because I didn't realize that trains and streetcars were different in the signage. I know they're different. So I'm looking for train number 14 rather than streetcar number 14. So once we figured that out, it was all good. And then it was fine for the rest of our trip. But that's one of those things when you travel to a new place, whether it's abroad or, home. You just have to kind of go with the flow, right? In all sectors of tourism, people spoke very, very good English. There were only a few times that I encountered people who I could not communicate very, very well with. And I would say from a major city standpoint, I didn't feel like things were overly expensive. I'm used to to large cities in the U S I'm used to Disney. So I know that there's a cost of traveling, but I really didn't find that food and stuff like that, our accommodations that we had before our conference were all reasonable.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 10:47

I want to go back for a moment to when you were talking about the app and Google Maps. So, did you use data? Did you have a phone

Ryan: 10:56

Yeah, so what I do when I travel abroad I have AT& T and so Mexico and Canada is included in that service. And then when I travel abroad it gives me the option to add an international plan And basically what I do is I pay ten dollars a day For the international plan, then that caps at 100 for the month. I found that very easy. I could talk on the phone like normal I could text back and forth like normal wi fi obviously worked great.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 11:27

Is that what most people did? Did most people just

Ryan: 11:29

I think most people in our group did that. Yeah. Yeah.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 11:33

Good to know.

Ryan: 11:35

So Amsterdam has some must dos in my eyes and and I didn't do all of these things. I did a lot of them. But here are some heavy hitters when it comes to Amsterdam, right? First and foremost is the Anne Frank House. Most of the people in our group did this at some point during their trip. Julie, this was fascinating.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 11:56

Yeah. Thanks for that.

Ryan: 11:57

Unfortunately, I went to this the evening of our first day there, I had already been up about 30 hours at that point because I didn't sleep on the plane. So I was a little drowsy but the Anne Frank house is somber too, so that kind of added to the yeah.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 12:12

You fit in a little bit. I can imagine it would be like a difficult

Ryan: 12:16

It is. So, so a couple things about the FRA House is if you want to go, tickets go on sale six weeks before the date and you do need to get them online. And they are a timed entry, I would recommend paying extra. We had a ticket that included kind of like an intro show where somebody took us to a classroom. In the center and kind of talked us through what we're going to see and gave us a little bit more of a backstory that was completely worth the extra, you know, 10 euro or whatever it was, and then basically what you do is you do a walk through the area. And you have headsets on and as you go into a room, it connects. So you're going through the business, the Otto Frank owned, you're seeing some of the more public rooms and hearing about the lead up. To the Frank family, and several other families, if you, if you don't know that, hiding in this space. And what Amsterdam was like, heading into the Nazi occupation and then, there's a section of the tour that has no audio. And that's when you walk through into the annex. And you're walking into the, the stairway, past the original bookshelf that was built for the doorway. And you're walking into this space and there's placards on the wall There's things explaining everything but there's no noise and I will tell you it is somber. It is quiet it is eerie and just to walk through that space and say Wow, there were three different families living here And they were doing it for two years and it's just, it's mind boggling. It's just absolutely mind boggling. And then you leave the area and the audio comes back on and you're actually in an area where you see a lot of Anne's writings because she didn't just write her diary, she wrote stories, she wrote plays different things like that. To engage her mind, right? If, if for no other reason, and you actually see part of her, Diary and it's a really impactful place to see

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 14:24

That's a great word. I was trying to think of what word you would even use to describe that. But that's, yeah, that's, that's great.

Ryan: 14:32

the next day. Then we did another thing that I think is a must do. We did a canal tour by boat. I think it was about an hour long. It was a narrated canal tour. They had a captain, a guy, they had several people that were providing wine and cheeses I want to say it was like 37 Euro. So very reasonable, fantastic pictures to see the areas. They talked about the canals. They talked about the history of Amsterdam. They pointed out places to come back and see later. They answered questions. So that was kind of a real crash course into, Hey, I'm in Amsterdam.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 15:11

Wow, that sounds like it would be just beautiful to be on the

Ryan: 15:15

Obviously Amsterdam is known for several really heavy hitter museums the Rijksmuseum that has the Dutch Masters and the Van Gogh Museum. I didn't go to either of those. We had people in our group that did and thought that that was obviously a good use of their time. Several of us went to a canal house tour where they actually talked about those narrow canal houses that you think of when you think of Amsterdam. And so this one was opened up to the public and they talked about who lived there. They talked about the creation of the canals. It was really cool and interesting. And I want to say too, there's any type of museum in Amsterdam you want to see from, the dutch masters all the way to the quirky sex and cannabis museum There's something for everybody when it when it comes to seeing stuff in amsterdam like you said at the beginning I was here for a conference So I didn't spend a lot of time doing touristy stuff But one more thing that we did as part of the conference is we did a food tour And so, you know me, I think that's one of the best ways to see a new city, right? I'm excited to talk about that, but first, I want to talk about where in the world does all things travel.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 16:20

All right.

Ryan: 16:21

So, Julie, I'm going to blow your mind.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 16:24

Alright.

Ryan: 16:25

going to blow your mind. I went back this morning as I was putting this script together, and I looked back at the last episode,

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 16:32

Okay.

Ryan: 16:33

at the last five episodes, because you can kind of break up the stats, because I'm like, this can't be right. The top place that I had never seen on our list before in the number two location for the last five episodes is Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 16:51

Was it you?

Ryan: 16:52

No, it wasn't me. How crazy is that? I know that there were people listening to the podcast who were there, but not that many that it would influence the stats. So hey, Amsterdam, I'm talking about you. I've mentioned all sorts of things on this podcast I loved your city. I'm so glad that you're listening to us today. Do me a favor, reach all the way out from Amsterdam. Send me a message, not Julie, cause I've just been to your city and I'll send you a nice little thank you gift for being featured on the show today. Julie, one of the things that we did on this conference is there's tour company called Colette. And we're familiar with Colette from our agency conference and they wanted to offer for our larger group of agents, an opportunity to experience a Colette tour so that

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 17:41

Ooh. Ooh.

Ryan: 17:42

our clients about what experience they could have with Colette. And so they took us one day on a food tour of Amsterdam. So we met our guide at the passenger terminal by our ship. She took us over to the streetcar, and we embarked on a multi hour food tour around Amsterdam.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 18:02

I love that.

Ryan: 18:03

I want to talk about the things that we sampled, but this will also help you get a better sense of what are the types of foods you should have. Or look for when you are in Amsterdam. The first place we went to was a gourmet. I'm going to call it gourmet, but all the shops look gourmet, a gourmet chocolatier, because what we learned on this tour is that most of the cocoa in the world is imported into Amsterdam. And roasted in Amsterdam and then sent to other places such as Belgium because we know Belgian chocolate, right? So we were able to sample some different chocolates. They were all amazing. Then we went to a bar and we sampled gin because the Netherlands is known for gin. We also had a bar snack there called Bitter Balls. And Bitter Balls is if you kind of took a hush puppy And put some meat in it, that would be a bitter ball. Kind of a bar snack, kind of an appetizer type thing, really good, went really well with a beer and some gin.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 19:07

I was gonna say, I feel like it's something you would like.

Ryan: 19:10

Yes. And then we went and had the famous Amsterdam pancakes. And we went to a place that I would highly recommend called Pancakes Amsterdam. This is a franchise, so you will find this all over the place

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 19:22

It's an original name.

Ryan: 19:24

Yes, exactly. Not on this tour, but for lunch one day, my friends and I went and got regular pancakes, about the size of a dinner plate, if not a little bigger, a little thicker than a crepe. Mine was filled with bacon and apples. It was very, very good. So they had savory pancakes, sweet pancakes. On this tour, we had what are called puffer jays, which are little, tiny, puffy pancakes that are covered with powdered sugar. So very much a sweet snack. Very, very good. We also had frites, which are french fries, covered with all sorts of yummy stuff. I would say I had a variety of frites throughout this trip. That was one of my main, main food focuses. My favorite was I had the supreme and that had, let's see, it had curry sauce, It had mayonnaise, and it had diced onions on top, and oh, it was so good, Julie. I can see by your face you're absolutely loving this.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 20:25

Ryan, that sounds terrible.

Ryan: 20:26

Ha ha ha ha ha!

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 20:27

Like, you had

Ryan: 20:28

so good.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 20:29

sauce, but when you went to the mayonnaise and the onions, I was like, meh.

Ryan: 20:32

Well, for, mayonnaise is kind of a thing on their fries over there, but you can get it with all sorts of stuff. All sorts of toppings. These fries are unbelievable. They are unbelievable. They're double fried. They're in like a cone and you eat them with like a fork. It's so good. Oh, so good

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 20:49

So bring your stretchy

Ryan: 20:51

bring your stretchy pants. Yes. The last thing we had on the food tour was herring now I grew up eating pickled herring as part of our christmas

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 21:04

Yeah, like New Year's thing?

Ryan: 21:05

This was brined And so I did not care for it. It just tasted different. The way that they serve it is, you can get it in a sandwich or you can just get it on a little tray, like a food tray. They have pieces of herring with pickles and onions. And then you just eat it with a little wooden fork. Yeah, it was not my favorite, and it surprised me that it wasn't my favorite, but it really wasn't. What they also had with that was a thing called kibbering, and kibbering is basically fried pieces of cod, so, you know, fried fish, and you can't go wrong with that.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 21:41

You're like, I'll take that

Ryan: 21:42

I'll take that. So that was my food tour. Does that not sound like a fun way to spend a morning? Yes.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 21:51

It sounds exactly like what I would imagine you did in Amsterdam.

Ryan: 21:56

And then another thing I want to point out because it's, it's very Dutch are Stroopwafels and obviously Stroopwafels are everywhere. The one thing I will say is there are very touristy Stroopwafel places and there are very traditional Stroopwafel places. So as we're walking by our guide who is from Amsterdam says, don't go there. You know, basically anything that makes Drupal Pools look fancy with like M& Ms crushed up on them and hard chocolate and stuff. She's like, that's for tourists. And we're like, well where's the best place to get a Drupal Pool? She goes, I don't know, we just buy them in the supermarket. Which I thought was kind of funny. But I will say the first day we were there, we went to a street market and one of our friends was looking for a place called Rudy's and Rudy's was there at the street market. And this guy was the best salesperson ever. And they're making the stroopwafels fresh and they're huge. I want to say they're about the size of an old CD. And I'm holding it and it's so hot that the caramel's dripping out of it. I'm just like, this is amazing. I love this. And it was cheap. It was like two 50 Euro. I mean, it was so good.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 23:05

Ryan's like, I love Amsterdam. This

Ryan: 23:08

So what do you, what do you think? Do you think you could eat in Amsterdam without the mayonnaise on your French fries?

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 23:13

Yeah, without the mayonnaise and onions on the french fries, the rest of it, the rest of it I could do. Yeah. Okay.

Ryan: 23:19

So a couple things I want to talk about with Amsterdam. There are bikes everywhere. In fact, there are more bikes in the Netherlands than there are people. And so you have to watch out for them because there are bike lanes and they don't stop. So that is one thing from a tourist perspective. You have to, you have to really watch out for because as our guide said, the cars stop for you. The bikes don't. We never had any problems. With it, but we had to get used to it.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 23:48

Is that something that's kind of true throughout Europe or just Amsterdam?

Ryan: 23:55

I have not noticed bikes in other cities. Definitely in Rome seeing mopeds

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 24:04

Okay.

Ryan: 24:04

type of stuff but bikes that was completely different and we saw that everywhere in the netherlands as we started the river cruise and went around but amsterdam obviously being a major city was it was very prevalent. The second thing to consider is obviously the red light district. What I will say about that is it's there if you want it. It's not, if you don't my group spent an evening one night, we walked down to the red light district to check it out cause we felt like we needed to. We also saw smaller red light. Areas throughout the city during our time.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 24:37

Okay.

Ryan: 24:37

It's there if you want it. It's not if you don't I would say if you are not wanting to have Sex in your face. Don't go to the large red light district because there's obviously other businesses and things associated with that commerce it's something that's very popular in amsterdam from a tourist perspective. And so it's definitely there. It's easy to find It's right in the heart of everything. The third thing.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 25:04

to avoid?

Ryan: 25:05

It's also easy to avoid if you don't want it you just stay away from those streets and it's not a big deal yeah, the other thing is obviously drugs you know marijuana and mushrooms specifically are very very prevalent in amsterdam with coffee shops with stores It's just going to be everywhere and it's it's just part especially if you're in a tourist location you know trying to find my son a t shirt that wasn't drug related, it's just part of it and It's kind of like when you used to go on spring break, right? and you would go to those t shirt shops and there's all sorts of Questionable stuff. It kind of felt like that. It's there if you want it. It's not in your face per se but obviously it's part of Amsterdam from a tourist standpoint.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 25:49

I'm sure, lots of tourists who that is their interest in

Ryan: 25:52

Absolutely.

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 25:53

but there's also lots of tourists who that is not in their interest for Amsterdam. Absolutely.

Ryan: 25:58

Julie's we wrap up today. What do you think? Does Amsterdam seem like the type of place that at some point you might want to check out?

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 26:06

And I think, sort of, the way that you did it is really ideal where you were there for a couple of days and then you kind of moved on to a few other places. new destinations. I love that you gave us some of these must do's and we learned about the canals and I just loved, hearing about that. I can't wait to hear about the actual river cruise itself.

Ryan: 26:24

So there's a lot of stuff in Amsterdam, obviously, that I didn't get to experience and I didn't talk about, but I really feel like you can do a lot of the highlights in a good, three days, you could really feel like, okay, I've done Amsterdam and now I'm ready to move on to another spot. I think it's a great European city and I was excited to go and I'm excited that I

J1Amsterdam-Julie-webcam-00h_00m_00s_390ms-StreamYard: 26:47

that's awesome. I love that. I'm so glad you guys had a great time. You want to plan a trip to an amazing destination like Amsterdam, but don't know how to get started? As your travel advisors, we work with you to create a customized itinerary for your vacation and take the stress of planning away so you can focus on the fun and creating memories. You can reach me at Julie at CreatingMagicVacations. com.

Ryan: 27:11

Or Ryan at CreatingMagicVacations. com We look forward to talking to you next week on All Things Travel I discuss the second part of this trip aboard the Amamora on a Tulip Time River Cruise.