Netherlands Travel Guide: 12 Provinces, Costs and What to Pack

The Netherlands is a country of about 18 million people in 41,543 km² (16,039 sq mi), divided into 12 provinces, and it is small enough that no two points are more than about four hours apart by train. It uses the euro, drives on the right, plugs into 230V type C and F sockets, and speaks English almost everywhere. This guide covers all 12 provinces, how to get in and around, what to pack by season and what it costs.

The Netherlands sits in north-western Europe with Germany to the east, Belgium to the south and the North Sea to the west and north. It also has territory in the Caribbean: together with Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten, which each have their own parliament, it forms the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It was a founder member of the European Union and belongs to NATO, the World Trade Organization and the OECD.

Netherlands quick facts

The facts you need before booking are set out below.

Type C and F sockets are the two-round-pin European standard, so British, American and Australian devices all need an adapter. A universal travel adapter covers it. For more of this sort of thing, we have 70 interesting facts about the Netherlands.

Holland or the Netherlands?

Holland is two of the country’s 12 provinces and the Netherlands is the country. North Holland and South Holland together make up the historical region of Holland, which is where Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Haarlem all are, and which is also where most visitors go. That is how the names got tangled.

The Dutch government dropped “Holland” as its international brand in 2020 and now promotes the country only as the Netherlands, which settled a long argument. Using “Holland” for the whole country is still widely understood and is still not appreciated by anyone from the other ten provinces. If you want one rule: say the Netherlands, and say Dutch rather than Hollandish.

The 12 provinces of the Netherlands

The Netherlands has 12 provinces, each with its own elected council and provincial capital, and the table below is the short version before the detail.

1. Zeeland

Zeeland is in the south-west of the Netherlands on the Belgian border, and it is the province Dutch families go to for the beach. Its coastline is wide, long and windy, and the Delta Works that protect it are an engineering site in their own right.

Middelburg, the capital, sits in the middle of the province and is a good afternoon of small historic streets. You can combine it with the coast on a weekend getaway.

2. South Holland

South Holland is the country’s most urban province and the capital, The Hague, is where the government and the International Court of Justice sit. It is busiest in summer because of Scheveningen, the beach resort that is effectively part of the city. Our guide to things to do in The Hague pairs the two.

Rotterdam is the province’s biggest city and the least Dutch-looking, rebuilt in modern architecture after 1940 and multicultural with it. It has food from everywhere, more coffee bars than anyone can work through, street art on every corner, parks for when the city is too much, a Caribbean-flavoured summer festival and serious shopping. You can spend several weekends in Rotterdam without finishing it.

3. North Holland

North Holland holds Amsterdam, the country’s capital and most-visited city, although the provincial capital is Haarlem. It is where most of the Dutch clichés actually are: windmills, cheese markets and fishing villages.

Keukenhof at Lisse is the one seasonal thing worth planning a trip around, with seven weeks of bulb fields from late March to mid-May: our guide to Keukenhof covers it. Texel, the Wadden island off the province’s northern tip, is reachable only by ferry and is walking and cycling country. Amsterdam Noord, across the IJ from Centraal Station, is the part of the capital most visitors never cross to.

4. Utrecht

Utrecht is the smallest province and sits in the middle of the country, which makes it the best base for day trips in every direction. Utrecht city is its capital and largest city and works well for a weekend on culture, food and shops.

Spakenburg and Woerden are small and old enough to feel like different centuries, Amersfoort combines two medieval walls with a modern centre, and Castle De Haar at Haarzuilens is the largest country house in the country. We covered all four in one trip.

5. North Brabant

North Brabant is in the south despite the name, along the Belgian border. Its capital is ‘s-Hertogenbosch, though Eindhoven, Tilburg and Breda are all larger and are where the weekend crowds go.

The province has five national parks and a serious restaurant scene, and Eindhoven’s Dutch Design Week in October is the biggest design event in northern Europe. Breda is worth a day: our guide to a sunny day in Breda covers it.

6. Limburg

Limburg is the south-eastern strip bordering both Belgium and Germany, and it is the only part of the Netherlands with anything that could be called a hill. Its capital, Maastricht, makes an excellent weekend and is a university city with an unusually southern European feel.

Roermond’s designer outlet draws shoppers from three countries. “Dutch Limburg” is sometimes used to distinguish this province from the Belgian province of Limburg next door.

7. Gelderland

Gelderland is the largest Dutch province by area, running from the middle of the country east to the German border. Arnhem and Nijmegen are the two cities, and Nijmegen is the oldest in the Netherlands.

The Hoge Veluwe and Veluwezoom national parks are the reason most people come: heath, forest and sand drift on a scale nothing else in the country matches, with the Kröller-Müller Museum and its Van Goghs inside the Hoge Veluwe. Gelderland also has more castles than any other province, and the Hanseatic towns of Zutphen and Doesburg.

8. Overijssel

Overijssel is in the east on the German border, and its Hanseatic river towns are its best feature: Zwolle the capital, small Kampen, and Deventer, which makes an easy day trip.

Giethoorn is the province’s famous one, a village where the houses sit along canals and footpaths rather than roads, which gets it called the Venice of the Netherlands and gets it extremely busy in July and August. Go early or go in spring.

9. Flevoland

Flevoland is the youngest province in the Netherlands and the clearest demonstration of what the Dutch do about water: the whole thing was reclaimed from the Zuiderzee and sits several metres below sea level. The Flevopolder is usually described as the largest artificial island in the world.

It has beaches, nature reserves, the capital Lelystad, and the country’s largest concentration of flower bulb fields, which in April makes for some of the most striking landscape in the Netherlands.

10. Drenthe

Drenthe is in the north-east on the German border, with Assen as its capital, and it is the quietest province. It is best known for walking and cycling routes through heath and forest.

It also has the hunebedden, 54 Neolithic megalithic tombs built around 3,500 BC, which are the oldest structures in the country and almost all of them are in Drenthe.

11. Friesland

Friesland is in the north, flat and open even by Dutch standards, and it is the only province with its own official language: Frisian, alongside Dutch. Its capital Leeuwarden was European Capital of Culture in 2018.

Friesland is also the home of the Elfstedentocht, the Eleven Cities Tour, a roughly 200 km (124.3 mi) ice skating race linking eleven Frisian towns. It can only be held when the canals freeze hard enough for natural ice along the whole route, which is why it has not been run since 1997. The province still keeps the organisation ready.

12. Groningen

Groningen is the far north-eastern province, bordering Germany, and its capital of the same name is the only large city in it. The rest is small historic towns, nature reserves and coast.

Part of that coast belongs to the Wadden Sea, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the largest unbroken system of intertidal sand and mud flats in the world, with a tradition of guided wadlopen, mudflat walking, out towards the islands at low tide.

How to travel to the Netherlands

By train

The Dutch cities are easy to reach by rail from Belgium, Germany, France and the UK, and Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Schiphol are all on the international network. Eurostar runs to Rotterdam Centraal and Amsterdam Centraal from Brussels, Paris and London, and ICE services run from Germany.

Advance fares move a long way on all of these, so it pays to compare train and coach fares across operators in one search before fixing a date. The same search covers long-distance coaches, which are the cheapest way in from a neighbouring country and the slowest.

By ferry

Three overnight and day ferry routes run from the UK to the Netherlands, and all three carry cars.

• Newcastle to IJmuiden, near Amsterdam, with DFDS Seaways.
• Hull to Rotterdam Europoort, with P&O Ferries.
• Harwich to Hook of Holland, with Stena Line.

You can check ferry routes and prices across the operators in one search.

By plane

Amsterdam Schiphol is the country’s main airport and one of the largest in Europe, with a direct train into Amsterdam Centraal in about 15 minutes and to Rotterdam in about 25. Eindhoven Airport and Rotterdam The Hague Airport handle mostly low-cost European routes.

Because the country is small, flying into Schiphol and taking the train works for every destination in this guide. Compare flight options and prices before you book.

How to travel around the Netherlands

Trains are the best way to get around the Netherlands and bikes are the best way to get around any Dutch town. The rail network reaches every city and most large towns, intercity services run every 15 to 30 minutes on the main routes, and buses fill the rest.

A car only earns its keep for the countryside: Zeeland’s coast, the Veluwe, Drenthe, and the villages around the Wadden coast. Parking costs money in every town a visitor would want to be in, and often a lot of it, though small towns still have free spaces. DiscoverCars compares rental providers if you want one.

Bikes are not a tourist activity here, they are the transport system, and hiring one for the day in any Dutch town is straightforward and cheap. Cycle paths are separate from the road, signposted nationally, and used at a speed that will surprise you.

If you would rather be guided, GetYourGuide lists day tours and activities across the country.

What to pack for the Netherlands

Pack layers and a rain jacket in every season, because the Dutch climate is moderate and changes its mind by the hour. Winter averages around 3°C (37°F) and summer around 19°C (66°F), with 30°C (86°F) days now common in July and August. It is cooler and considerably windier on the coast, and there is no dry season: rain is spread across the year, with April to August the driest stretch.

What to pack for the Netherlands in summer

The 5 items below are what a Dutch summer actually needs.

1. Sunglasses and sunscreen. The light off the water is stronger than the temperature suggests.
2. Walking sandals. For the beaches of Zeeland, Texel and Scheveningen.
3. Swimwear. The North Sea is cold and people swim in it anyway.
4. A refillable water bottle. Tap water is safe and free everywhere.
5. A light rain jacket. Still. In August.

What to pack for the Netherlands in winter

The 5 items below cover a Dutch winter, which is wet and windy more than it is cold.

1. A warm waterproof coat. Wind off the North Sea is the thing you feel.
2. Waterproof shoes. Pavements and cycle paths stay wet for weeks.
3. A hat, gloves and a scarf. Especially if you are cycling.
4. Layers rather than one thick jumper. Dutch buildings run warm inside.
5. A refillable water bottle. The same one.

What to pack for the Netherlands in spring and autumn

Spring and autumn are the least predictable seasons and they need the same wardrobe in both directions: T-shirt one day, jacket the next, and autumn a little wetter than spring. Pack clothes that combine so you can add and remove layers, take a light insulated jacket and a waterproof shell over it, and you are covered from March to May and from September to November.

The best time to travel to the Netherlands

May, June and September are the best months to visit the Netherlands, with decent weather, long days and prices below the peak. July and August are the warmest and the busiest, because most of Europe has school holidays then.

Two things are worth planning around. Keukenhof runs for about seven weeks from late March to mid-May, and the bulb fields flower on their own schedule inside that window. And King’s Day on 27 April shuts and fills the entire country at once, which is either the reason to come or the reason not to.

What to eat in the Netherlands

Dutch food has a bad reputation and an out-of-date one. The snack tradition is still there, and the lunch places, bistros and coffee bars of the last fifteen years have changed the picture entirely. The 12 things below are what to look for.

• Bitterballen, deep-fried balls of thick beef ragout, eaten with mustard and beer. Order these first.
• Broodje kroket, a croquette in a soft bread roll, which is lunch for half the country.
• Stroopwafels, two thin waffles glued with caramel syrup, best bought warm off a market griddle rather than in a packet.
• Poffertjes, small thick pancakes with butter and icing sugar.
• Stamppot, mashed potato beaten through with kale, sauerkraut or endive, served with smoked sausage. Winter food.
• Haring, raw herring with onion and pickle, eaten from a stall by holding the tail.
• Kibbeling, battered fried cod pieces with sauce, sold everywhere fish is.
• Snert, thick split-pea soup with pork, celery and leek, traditionally eaten on the ice.
• Drop, salt liquorice, which is a dare rather than a sweet for most visitors.
• Tompoes, a rectangular custard slice with pink icing, which turns orange for King’s Day.
• Oliebollen, doughnut balls in icing sugar, sold from stalls in December and gone by February.
• Cheese. Gouda, Edam, Leyden, Maasdam and aged oude kaas, which tastes nothing like the young version.

The biggest events in the Netherlands

Ten events fill the Dutch calendar and most of them fill every bed in their city.

1. King’s Day, 27 April, nationwide. The King’s birthday, celebrated with street parties, open-air markets and the entire country wearing orange. Amsterdam is close to impassable.
2. Amsterdam Dance Event, October. A city-wide electronic music conference and festival across hundreds of venues.
3. Dutch Design Week, Eindhoven, October. The largest design event in northern Europe.
4. Amsterdam Light Festival, late November to mid-January. Light installations along the canals, best seen from a boat. Glow Eindhoven in November is the less crowded version.
5. Pinkpop, Landgraaf, June. The country’s biggest open-air music festival and one of the oldest in the world.
6. Open Monument Day, a weekend in September when hundreds of historic buildings open free to the public.
7. Scheveningen International Fireworks Festival, August, over the beach.
8. Rotterdam Unlimited, July, with a street parade, music battles and Caribbean carnival.
9. Crossing Border, The Hague, late October. Literature and music on the same stage.
10. Scheveningen New Year’s Dive, 1 January, when tens of thousands of people run into the North Sea.

Bank holidays in the Netherlands

Government offices and most businesses close on the days below.

• New Year’s Day
• Good Friday, though many businesses stay open
• Easter Sunday and Easter Monday
• King’s Day, 27 April
• Liberation Day, 5 May
• Ascension Day
• Whit Sunday and Whit Monday
• Christmas Day and Second Christmas Day, 26 December

One local rule catches people out: Liberation Day on 5 May is a public holiday but most employees only get it as a paid day off once every five years, so shops and offices often open on it in ordinary years. Shops in most Dutch cities also open on Sundays, which is not true across the border in Belgium or Germany.

Where to stay in the Netherlands

Book early for April and May in the bulb region, for July and August anywhere on the coast, and for any Amsterdam weekend. The Netherlands has hostels, boutique hotels, farm stays and a great deal of self-catering, and it is one of the few countries in Europe where a houseboat is an ordinary booking.

There is a wide selection of hotels across the Netherlands at every level, and Vrbo has the better range of apartments and houses if you want a kitchen.

Money, phones, safety and tipping

Cash and cards

The Netherlands is one of the most cashless countries in Europe and some cafés and restaurants refuse cash entirely. Debit cards rule here, to the point that the Dutch have a verb for it: pinnen, to pin, because a debit payment always needs a PIN.

Two warnings for visitors. Some Dutch card terminals accept Maestro and V Pay but not credit cards, which catches out American visitors in particular, and a few refuse foreign cards altogether. Cash machines are easy to find in towns and cities. Carry a small amount of cash for markets and the few places that still want it.

Phones and data

An EU SIM works in the Netherlands with no roaming charge under most tariffs. If yours is not an EU SIM, an eSIM is simpler than buying a Dutch one on arrival: you can set up an Airalo eSIM before you travel and use the code HARRY5578 for €3 off. Coverage is excellent nationwide, and wifi is free in most cafés, stations and trains.

Safety

The Netherlands is one of the safest countries in Europe, with a low violent crime rate and nothing a visitor needs to plan around. Pickpocketing in Amsterdam’s centre, on trams and at Centraal Station is the only real risk, and it is the ordinary precautions that deal with it.

The genuine hazard is the bicycle. Cycle paths are separate from pavements, they are red, they are full, and Dutch cyclists travel fast and do not expect to brake for tourists standing in them. Look before you step off a kerb, and do not photograph anything from a bike lane.

Tipping

Tipping is not obligatory in the Netherlands and service is included in the bill by law. Rounding up, or leaving 5% to 10% in a restaurant when the meal has been good, is normal and appreciated rather than expected. Our guide to tipping in Europe has the detail by situation.

Travel insurance

Travel insurance covers the parts of a trip you cannot plan for: a cancelled ferry, an illness abroad, a stolen camera off the back of a bike. An EHIC or GHIC covers state healthcare for European visitors on the same terms as a Dutch resident, and covers nothing else. SafetyWing’s Nomad Insurance can be bought after a trip has already started, which is unusual among policies.

All our Netherlands posts

Everything we have written about the Netherlands is listed below.

• Things to do in Amsterdam Noord
• What to do in Rotterdam in a weekend
• Rotterdam street art and graffiti
• Rotterdam restaurants and coffee bars
• Kralingse Bos and 4 other Rotterdam parks
• Shopping in Rotterdam
• Rotterdam Unlimited festival
• Things to do in The Hague
• Keukenhof gardens in Lisse
• Fun things to do in Utrecht province
• Zutphen, Deventer and Doesburg
• Things to do in Maastricht
• A weekend in Zeeland
• A sunny day in Breda
• Leeuwarden, European Capital of Culture 2018
• 70 interesting facts about the Netherlands

There is more in our full Netherlands category.

Netherlands travel FAQ

What is the difference between Holland and the Netherlands?

Holland is the historical region covering two of the country’s 12 provinces, North Holland and South Holland, and the Netherlands is the whole country. The Dutch government stopped using “Holland” as its international brand in 2020. People from the other ten provinces do not appreciate the substitution.

How many days do you need in the Netherlands?

Five days covers Amsterdam plus two other cities comfortably, which is what most first trips should be. A week lets you add the coast or the Veluwe. Three days is Amsterdam and one day trip. The country is small enough that base-and-day-trip beats moving hotels.

Is the Netherlands expensive to visit?

Amsterdam is expensive and the rest of the Netherlands is moderate. Accommodation is the biggest cost and drops sharply outside the capital, trains are reasonably priced by western European standards, museums are mid-priced, and a bike hire for the day costs less than a couple of tram tickets.

What is the best month to visit the Netherlands?

May is the best single month, with tulips still out at the start of it, long days and prices below the summer peak. June and September are close behind. July and August are warm and crowded, and November to February is dark and wet.

Do you need cash in the Netherlands?

You need very little cash in the Netherlands and some places refuse it entirely. What you do need is a debit card that works in Dutch terminals: some accept Maestro and V Pay but not credit cards, which catches out North American visitors. Carry a small amount of cash for markets.

Do people in the Netherlands speak English?

Almost everyone in the Netherlands speaks English, and to a standard that makes learning Dutch for a holiday pointless. German and French are widely spoken too. Frisian is an official language in Friesland alongside Dutch.

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

The 5 tips below come from dozens of trips across the Netherlands and from re-checking the practical detail in 2026.

1. Bring a debit card, not just a credit card. Some Dutch terminals take Maestro and V Pay and refuse credit cards outright, and a growing number of cafés refuse cash altogether. This is the single most common way visitors get stuck at a till here.
2. Stay out of the bike lanes. They are the red strips, they are separate from the pavement, and Dutch cyclists ride them fast and do not slow down for people standing in one taking a photograph. This is the real hazard in an otherwise very safe country.
3. Liberation Day on 5 May is a public holiday most people still work. Employees generally get it as a paid day off only once every five years, so shops and offices often open. Do not plan around it the way you would King’s Day.
4. The Elfstedentocht has not been held since 1997. The eleven-city skating tour needs natural ice along the whole 200 km route, and the winters have not delivered. It is still worth knowing about; it is not something to plan a trip around.
5. Go to Giethoorn early or in spring. The canal village is genuinely remarkable and in July and August it is full of tour groups from mid-morning. The same is true of Keukenhof, which is best in the first hour after opening.

About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, who lived in Belgium next door and has made dozens of trips across the Netherlands, from Zeeland’s coast to the Hanseatic towns on the IJssel and the Frisian north. The team covers the Netherlands for independent travellers, including the hotels, apartments, rail fares, car hire and festivals worth booking, and updates this page when prices, holidays and practical rules change.