giltheissen

Hello; We're planning a month long trip to the UK next month and we'll be renting a car for the entire trip. I'd like to take a week of that to drive around Belgium and the Netherlands with a few days in Amsterdam. I'd like to stay in the heart of the city but I've read that parking is very expensive and difficult there, so what's the safest/cheapest thing to do with the car? Leave the car at the airport for 3 days and take the train into the city? Stay at a hotel on the ouskirts and take a train/bus downtown? Pay extra and find a central hotel with parking or hope to find public parking garages? Any tips or advice from anyone with actual experience in this regard would be appreciated. Thanks Gil Theissen

drempel

Your strategy of parking at the long term lot at the airport may be your best bet. You can go to the schiphol website and click on parking to find the exact amount you'd have to pay for the length of time you'll be there. There are several lots in A'dam proper. I've only used the one near the marriott hotel (can't remember the name, but if you do a search for amsterdam parking you should get the info). It is close to the Leidesplein and you can walk or tram everywhere. I think it was €16 a day to park about a year ago. Do not stay outside the city unless you stay in Haarlem. You'll waste too much time traveling around. Have fun!

nytraveler

If you double check with the UK car rental companies I think you'll find they don't allow you to take their cars to the continent - just too many chances for accidents - so you'll have to leave it there. And you don't want a car in Amsterdam, it's very hard to park in the center - and essentially useless - just like the center of any other big city.

So what I would do is rent a car when you leave Amsterdam, do whatever driving you want and return the car before you fly back to wherever.

Betsy

Is it possible to nudge your itinerary so you can drive around in Belgium and the Netherlands, drop your car off before you reach Amsterdam, take the train into Amsterdam and then fly home from Amsterdam? I agee with the others who've responded: You need a car in Amsterdam like a fish needs a bicycle.

Davelw

We drove a rental car all around Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. We stayed at a hotel right in the heart of Amsterdam and has no trouble finding free parking on the street within one block of the hotel. Once we parked, we didn't move the car (didn't need to since everything was within walking distance).

Dave

Ida101

Parking is difficult and expensive in Amsterdam.
Parking at the airport is also very expensive.
You better opt to stay in places like Zaandam (there ia a hotel near the station with free parking), 15 minutes by train.
Also Hoofddorp (just south of the airport) has some nice hotels with shuttles to the station.

Tulips

Even if they allow you to take the car from the UK, you really don't want to drive around Amsterdam in an English car! Can you fly from London to Amsterdam, pick up the car when you leave Amsterdam, drive around Holland and Belgium, and fly back to the UK from Amsterdam or Brussels?
There are hotels with parking in Amsterdam, but you will still have to pay for the parking (Krasnapolsky has a garage). There's a large car park at Museum Plein (opposite the Rijksmuseum) where I usually park, but it will be expensive for three days.

flanneruk

The problem with taking a UK-hired car to Holland isn't that the car hire companies won't let you (they LOVE it) or that it's difficult driving on the wrong side of the road with a car configured for driving the proper way (it isn't. Honest. Especially with two of you, and especially in Benelux. I've been doing it for decades).

It's cost. And you're going to have a cost problem however you handle this.

If you hire a car in Britain and take it abroad, you MUST tell the hire company, or your insurance is invalidated. And the company will charge you a whopping daily supplement (which is why most of them like your taking the car abroad so much). On top of that, taking a car on a ferry or through the tunnel, especially between March and September, is going to cost a fair amount: you're going to have to surf the special offers very hard to get much change out of £200 return even for Dover-Calais.

Against that, I've never found parking in central Amsterdam a problem. By the standards of most real cities, there's a reasonable amount of on-street parking, and multi-storeys are pretty easy to find: you simply have to keep your eyes peeled for parking places, as you would anywhere else Parking at Schiphol is €50 for the first 3 days and €5.50 per day thereafter, so for three days there's no saving parking it there over coming into town and paying the €16 a day drempel quotes (Where I live, the Greens would be out on the street protesting if city-centre car parking was as irresponsibly cheap as that. Actually these days, so would the Conservatives)

I'd leave the car round Leidseplein.

But leaving your car in Britain isn't a cost-free option. Assuming you're in London, it's true that flights to Benelux are dirt cheap. But parking at London-area airports isn't: £55 for a week at the cheapest (Stansted), in the most inconvenient park, IF you book ahead: parking at British airports has to be treated with all the advance planning and careful supplier comparison you'd apply to international plane fares. The cheapest week's parking at Heathrow would buy you a ticket to the US.

Can't give you an overall recomendation, except to get out the Excel and start pumping the numbers in.

flanneruk

Sorry: sloppy writing.

All companies that allow you to take a Britain-hired car abroad will charge you a supplement. I'm not 100% sure all companies allow it.

You MUST check it's possible (as well as how spectacularly they're going to rip you off) before making any plans. The majors all have details of this in the T+C or FAQ pages of the ".co.uk" websites.

Nlingenfel

We have stayed in Edam several times and taken the bus into the center. It is very inexpensive and very fast (they have their own lane). For short day trips we have parked in the bus and car parking lot on the other side of central station near the river, it is expensive, but we split the cost by 4.

jeffwill4you

We stayed at the LE MERIDEN Apollo while in Amsterdam with a rented car and just left the car parked the whole time we were there for 5 Euros per day
parked by the valet.

janisj

The plan isn't all that practical - cost, "wrong" side of the car on the "correct" side of the road, logistics, etc.

If it were me - I'd rent a car in the UK, turn it in, fly to A'dam, stay in the city center, then rent a car as I left the city to explore Benelux, turn in the car and fly back to the UK (or take the Eurostar from Brussels).

giltheissen

Thanks to all for the various suggestions. I had a feeling that trying to take a UK rental car to the continent might add some additional complications to the mix. Since I've already made the plane reservations and booked a car, maybe we should simply plan a separate trip to Belgium and Holland next year. On the other hand, I'd hate to let all the other great suggestions go to waste, so who knows... Anyway, thanks again all - Gil Theissen