Our Staycation in Amsterdam

The past few years we’ve been traveling a lot, to meet our Spotters in 43 cities in Europe. We’ve been outside of our hometown Amsterdam for about 6 months every year since starting Spotted by Locals in 2008.

While we can never get tired of traveling to cities in Europe, we’ve decided to take a little 4 day holiday very close to home –  to save some money and to take our time to experience our favorite city in the world. Destination: Amsterdam, our hometown since Sanne and I both started studying in Amsterdam in 1997!

There are so many spots we’ve been waiting to visit for a long time. Some of the spots on our “must visit” list, in no particular order:

1. Vintage shop I love Vintage
Of course vintage is hot, like almost everywhere in Europe. Lauren recommends two shops (I love Vintage and Rumors Vintage) that especially Sanne is really curious to see!

I Love Vintage Amsterdam (by Madelien Schippers)2. Pancake restaurant Koning Pannekoek
Our Spotter Gerben just opened his own pancake restaurant this week, in one of the hippest areas in Amsterdam! We’re really curious!

3. Burgerbar Amsterdam
The burger culture in Amsterdam is finally getting serious with quality biological meat burgers. Our Spotter Madelien says the Burgerbar’s burgers are the best, and we’ll happily test!

Burgerbar Amsterdam (by Gisela Clarke)4.‘t Nieuwe Diep
Madelien’s favorite spot for this summer is really an insider tip. None of our friends know it, but it sounds really wonderful! An old water pump station into a distillery/café serving Dutch jenevers in beautiful Amsterdam nature…

Furthermore Meneer Malasch (recommended by Martin) has a good party this weekend, and we made reservations for Surf & turf at RED (because it’s always full when we cycle by). And 25 other things on our list….

We just read in the newspaper that staying “home” for  vacation is called a “Staycation“. Writer Matt Wixon even wrote a bestseller book about it – “the great American Staycation”. His tips:

1) Treat a staycation as a real vacation. Choose a start and end date. Make sure the house is clean.
Check. Friday August 10 to Monday August 13.

2) Make a plan.
Check. See above.

3) Pull the plug from your smartphone
No way! We need to use our iPhone app (Sanne) and Android app (Bart) to find out where the Spotted by Locals spots are!

4) Create a mental distance. Do something else: eat somewhere else and go to a place in your hometown you’ve never been.
Of course!

5) Spoil yourself. You save so much money by not travelling you can spend more than usual. Go out to eat, stay in a hotel, have a message…
We’ll definitely go out to eat – something we don’t very often do in Amsterdam

6) Make sure you have lasting memories. Take pictures, buy souvenirs.
Camera, check. But buy souvenirs?

7) Stay positive. Too bad a real vacation is not possible, but concentrate on what you can do.
We’re extremely positive. Check!

8) Think about if a staycation is something for you. Some people go crazy not leaving the city
Valid point. We do tend to keep wanting to visit more and more. Often as soon as we unpacked our suitcase, we’re talking about “which city shall we go next?”. We’ll see how it goes!