Recommended Amsterdam hotels and hostels that offer good value

Onward with our series of recommended hotels and hostels, we concentrate on Amsterdam. Considering the tourist part of the city is small enough that you can literally walk from one end to the other in about 40 minutes, it’s staggering to learn that Amsterdam has over 600 hotels and hostels from which to choose.

Some other cities, like London or Paris, are so big and spread out that wherever you stay you’ll need to ride public transport to see most of the sights, but in Amsterdam as long as you stay in one of the key central locations you’ll be able to walk it all if you like. There’s a big difference between staying in a room that you’ll pass by a couple times during the day and one that is on the far edge of town so remote that once you go back you don’t want to go out again at night.

So location is key for our hotel and hostel choices below, but like in our other picks of recommended London hotelsrecommended Paris hotels, and recommended New York hotels, we also find places that get excellent reviews and are also great value for their category.

Basically, these hotels and hostels all…

  • Are well located
  • Are very good value in their category
  • Receive among the best reviews in their category

We’ve spent many hours going through all the factors to choose the places we’d try to book on our own next trip.

2 Highly recommended Amsterdam hostels

Hostel The Globe

–Cheapest beds at a high-rated hostel–

Hostel The Globe, which is part of Hotel The Globe, is a party-oriented hostel very near the Red Light District. The beds in its 20-bunk dorm are among the cheapest in all of Amsterdam, so this is great value considering this is also one of the city’s highest rated hostels. There’s a huge sports pub on the main floor, with a smoking area (cannabis included) that’s open until 3am on weekdays and 5am on weekends.

The rooms here are mostly typical for Amsterdam, but the place is cleaner, better run, and with a much better location that anything else in its price category. Most hostels in this town get horrible reviews, or are very expensive, so Hostel The Globe is a great choice for having the best of both worlds at an appealing price.

Beds starting at €21
Book Hostel The Globe

St. Christopher’s Inn at The Winston

–Eclectic hostel/hotel with a perfect nightlife location–

Aside from the Hostel The Globe mentioned above, the St. Christopher’s at the Winston is the only other highly-rated Amsterdam hostel with cheap beds available. This is part of a large chain of European hostels, all of which are dominated by a ground-floor bar called Belushi’s. Each room is different, and it’s kept clean as well as any hostel in the city.

The location along the Warmoesstraat pedestrian street in the heart of the non-sleazy part of the Red Light District could not be more central for the party crowd. The bar at this hostel has great drink specials plus a large patio where smoking is permitted until late, and it’s also within 100 meters of many of the best coffeeshops and pubs in Amsterdam.

The rooms with fewer bunks here are more expensive, but still great value, and this place stays quite full all year round because of the fun atmosphere and professional service. There’s good wi-fi on the ground-floor as well, plus a tasty breakfast buffet that’s included with the bed price. If you have a group you might book a private room in the hotel section for even cheaper, as they have rooms with 1 bed all the way up to 6 in the private wing.

Beds starting at €34
Book St. Christopher’s Inn-The Winston

5 Highly recommended Amsterdam hotels

Note: Hotel “starting at” prices listed below were the cheapest I could find for each hotel, usually for a single room. It’s likely your dates will show higher prices, especially for a double room, but this doesn’t mean it’s not a great deal. Please compare prices you are quoted to prices of similar hotels and you’ll usually find that these are bargains.

Hotel La Boheme – 2*

–High-quality cheapie with a perfect location–

If you are looking for a cheap room and you want to stay close to the nightlife then the Hotel La Boheme is the perfect choice. It’s one of a few hotels just around the corner from the heart of the Leidseplein entertainment and restaurant district, so it’s quiet but literally a few steps away from all the action and about 100 different restaurant choices.

The rooms here are fairly basic, as you’d expect for this price, and some of them are in the basement, which is also typical of Amsterdam hotels. The beds get high marks for being comfortable and the rooms aren’t tiny like in some other places, but the service in particular gets rave reviews so most guests seem intent on booking again. The cheapest rooms are singles with a shared bathroom, so double en-suite rooms will be more.

Rooms starting at €40 per night, including breakfast
Click to find best rates for the Hotel La Boheme

Hotel Nadia – 2*

–Top-rated 2-star with very central location–

A perennial Amsterdam favorite, the Hotel Nadia is another one that is officially 2-stars because it doesn’t have a lift, but pretty much everything else about the place is a solid 3-star. Again, the location is very centrally located yet not on top of a nightlife area, so everything is within walking distance and the nights are quiet. The Anne Frank House is very close, so this is a great location to head over there early and avoid the huge queue later.

There’s free wi-fi and the hotel has a reputation for being spotless, but it’s the service and the staff that get the rave reviews from practically every guest. With many smaller hotels in Amsterdam in this price range you often have to hunt down even one person at the front desk, but at the Nadia they routinely go out of their way to help guests plan their day and find the best local resources.

Rooms starting at €91 per night, including breakfast
Click to find best rates for the Hotel Nadia

Misc Eatdrinksleep – 2*

–Tiny boutique B&B in the city center–

The Misc Eatdrinksleep is a 6-room bed & breakfast that officially gets a 2-star rating because there is no lift, but otherwise it’s more like a 3- or even 4-star boutique hotel. The location is very convenient for almost everything, being on the quiet side of the city center, a short walk from the Red Light District, the Old Church, and the central train station.

This is another property that gets very good reviews from nearly everyone, and yet new guests continue to feel as if their expectations have been exceeded. There’s a comfortable kingsized bed in each room, plus a flat screen TV, and free and fast wi-fi. With only 6 rooms the owners are able to cater to many small requests, and evidently they have a fantastic reputation for doing so.

Rooms starting at €175 per night, including breakfast
Click to find best rates for the Misc Eatdrinksleep

Mauro Mansion – 3*

–Small, quirky, and great value for Amsterdam’s #1 hotel–

With only 9 rooms, the Mauro Mansion is another that’s run like a bed & breakfast, with extremely good service from the on-site owners who’ll tend to every request possible. They actually claim to be zero stars, but clearly they are just being modest because this is literally the #1-rated hotel for Amsterdam in TripAdvisor.

The location only a short walk from the central train station makes it very convenient for most people, and finding a tram or taxi out to the museums or other attractions is easy. All rooms here have free wi-fi, a flat-screen TV, a DVD player on request, and even a minibar fridge filled with free drinks.

Seemingly every past guest sings the praises of the Mauro Mansion, so it’s a wonder that they are still in the moderate price range for this expensive hotel city.

Rooms starting at €119 per night, including breakfast
Click to find best rates for the Mauro Mansion

Hotel Estherea – 4*

–Great-value for a 4-star with central location–

The Hotel Estherea is a very popular 4-star hotel with 92 rooms, many of which overlook the historic Singel Canal in the heart of the city. The location will be ideal for many, as it’s on a quiet street near the shopping district and the Anne Frank House, but also walking distance from pretty much every attraction in Amsterdam. Three different nightlife districts are only a 10-minute walk away as well.

Being one of Amsterdam’s highest-rated 4-star hotels you’d expect the Hotel Estherea to also be among the most expensive, but online specials often have it on par with many 3-star hotels. All rooms have recently been renovated and there is great attention to detail here, along with very good service by the professional staff. A breakfast buffet costs extra, but there’s a bakery a few steps away, and there’s free wi-fi throughout.

Rooms starting at €181 per night
Click to find best rates for the Hotel Estherea

Interactive map of the above hotels and hostels

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  1. Marie says:

    Thanks Roger for the reply. So glad to come a accross your article. Big help for us travelling for the first time in amsterdam.

  2. marie says:

    Hi Roger! can i ask for your advice on where i can stay in Amsterdam? I bothered by the red light district since i have an 11 year old girl with me. I still want to be in the city center. Can you suggest what hotel and area i should consider. Thank you

    1. Roger Wade says:

      Marie,

      I understand your dilemma and interestingly enough I’m now developing a new feature for this exact type of situation, using Amsterdam as the first example (because I used to live there). That won’t be ready for a while though.

      The actual Red Light District is now very small and there are almost no hotels near the actual red light windows. Still, the rest of the area is filled with bars and coffeeshops, so it’s not a great choice for families in general. My favorite areas for hotels in Amsterdam are near Rembrandtplein (Rembrandt Square), the center of which is also home to much of Amsterdam’s more glamorous nightlife. The square itself can be loud at night, so you’d probably want to find a hotel at least a block or two away from that. There are dozens of nice hotels in the blocks around that square, and it’s a convenient and mostly family-friendly neighborhood.

      My other favorite hotel neighborhood is a little farther out and it’s called Leidseplein (Leidse Square). It’s a short walk from the Reichsmuseum (main state museum), and fairly close to the Van Gogh Museum. If you find Leidseplein on the map you’ll find plenty of hotels in the blocks around it, and again, I wouldn’t stay right ON the square if I were you. There are also quite a few really good-value hotels in the quiet neighborhood just south and east of Leidseplein in the blocks close to Vondelpark. It’s VERY quiet around there, but still a fairly short walk to Leidseplein, which has something like 100 small restaurants all next to each other on the blocks just north of the square itself. If you find a place you are considering I will be happy to give you my advice in another comment. Have a great trip. -Roger

  3. José Gustavo Alves says:

    This post is wrong.

    It says St. Christopher’s Inn at The Winston hostel, but link to Flying Pig Downtown

    1. admin says:

      José, thank you so much for pointing this out. I just fixed it.
      -Roger