Amsterdam Day Trips: 2 Day Itinerary
Two days is enough for exactly two of Amsterdam’s gateway day trips, not a rushed four. Day 1 covers the windmills at Zaandam and Zaanse Schans on one train line; Day 2 covers Haarlem, the cheapest and fastest trip on this list. This is the two-day slice of a longer family: see the 3-day , 5-day , and 7-day versions if you have more time to spread across Marken, Volendam, Keukenhof, and Kinderdijk .
Book these before you go
- Keukenhof entry only if your two days fall inside 19 March to 10 May 2026 and you want to swap it in for Haarlem; see the note below.
- A guided Zaanse Schans windmill tour , useful on Day 1 if you would rather have someone explain the working mills than read the signage.
- Where to stay in Amsterdam , since both days return here to sleep.
| Day | Focus | Travel time from Amsterdam |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Zaandam and Zaanse Schans | ~11 min train, then one more stop (~6 min) |
| Day 2 | Haarlem | ~15-16 min train |
Day 1: Zaandam and Zaanse Schans
Take the direct NS train from Centraal toward Zaandam, about 11 minutes, roughly EUR 3.50 one-way. Get off at Zaandam first. The Inntel Hotel’s facade, dozens of traditional green Zaan houses stacked on top of each other, is a five-minute walk from the platform and worth photographing even if you are not a guest. The Czaar Peterhuisje, the small wooden house where Peter the Great of Russia lodged in 1697 to study Dutch shipbuilding, sits nearby. Budget 60 to 90 minutes here.
Get back on the train one more stop to Zaandijk Zaanse Schans, another 6 minutes, and you are at the windmill village. Entry to the open-air site is free; the individual windmills, the cheese demonstration, and the clog workshop each charge a few euros separately. Go before 10:30am. Tour buses start arriving soon after, and the paths between mills get crowded fast. Check dezaanseschans.nl for which mills are actually turning; they depend on wind, not a schedule. Total cost for the day, door to door: about EUR 4.20 in train fares plus whatever workshops you pay to enter.
Return to Amsterdam by late afternoon and eat in the city rather than at Zaanse Schans itself, where the food options are built for tour-bus turnover, not quality.
Day 2: Haarlem
Haarlem is 15 to 16 minutes from Centraal by train, about EUR 5-6 one-way, on one of the busiest rail lines in the country, roughly 148 trains a day. This is the cheapest and fastest gateway trip on the whole list, and the mistake most people make is over-scheduling it. The Grote Kerk (home to the Müller organ, which a ten-year-old Mozart once played) and the Frans Hals Museum cover the real highlights, and the Grote Markt around them works fine for a slow lunch. Half a day is genuinely enough; do not try to stretch it into a full one.
If your dates fall inside 19 March to 10 May 2026: swap this day for Keukenhof instead. Book an entry ticket in advance (about EUR 20.50, or a EUR 35-38.50 shuttle-and-entry combo from Amsterdam, roughly 45 minutes each way) and confirm current hours on keukenhof.nl before you commit the day to it. Outside that six-week window, Keukenhof is closed entirely, and Haarlem remains the better use of the day.
Should I do Keukenhof instead of Haarlem on a two-day trip?
Only if your travel dates land inside 19 March to 10 May 2026, since Keukenhof does not exist as an option outside that window. If they do line up, Keukenhof is the higher-impact of the two for a spring trip; if they do not, Haarlem is cheaper, faster, and open every day of the year.
Is two days enough to see Marken and Volendam too?
Not comfortably. Marken and Volendam together need a bus ride, a ferry crossing, and enough slack time that rushing them into an already packed two-day trip means seeing neither one properly. Save that combination for the 3-day version of this itinerary, where it gets its own day.
Buy your Zaanse Schans and Haarlem train tickets with a contactless card or phone tapped directly on the OVpay readers; there is no need to queue for a paper ticket for either trip.