Renting a car to show the kids more of the Netherlands sounds sensible until you’re circling a parking garage in Delft with a toddler who needed the toilet ten minutes ago. The best day trips from Amsterdam by train solve most of that. NS runs trains every 15 to 30 minutes to nearly every town worth visiting, kids under four ride free, and nobody has to find parking.
We picked ten routes that actually work with kids in tow, short enough that nobody melts down before you’ve arrived, and with something at the other end that isn’t just old buildings. Some are proper day trips, others are easy half-days if you want to be home for dinner. All of them start at Amsterdam Centraal, no transfers unless we say so.
If you’d rather have a car and go further afield, our guide to weekend getaways and day trips from Amsterdam covers those. This one sticks to what you can reach without ever touching a steering wheel.
Day trips from Amsterdam by train: under 20 minutes
Zaanse Schans is the one every visiting grandparent wants to see, and it’s genuinely worth it with kids. The train to Zaandijk Zaanse Schans station takes about 17 minutes from Amsterdam Centraal, then it’s a 15-minute walk following the signs to the windmills. Once you’re there, kids can go inside a working windmill, watch cheese being made, and run around outside without much to break. Bring a picnic. It gets busy with tour buses by midday, so an early train helps.
Haarlem takes about 15 minutes by direct train and feels like Amsterdam’s calmer cousin, with canals, a big open market square, and none of the crowds. The Grote Markt is a good spot to let kids run while you find a café table, and Teylers Museum has enough odd fossils and old scientific instruments to hold their attention for an hour. We’ve written more about the city in our Haarlem guide if you want a fuller day planned out.
25 to 40 minutes: the sweet spot for a full day out
Utrecht is a 25-minute direct train and one of the best cities in the country for a family day. From Utrecht Centraal it’s about a 15 to 20 minute walk to the Nijntje Museum, that’s Miffy, for anyone who grew up outside the Netherlands, a small hands-on museum built for exactly this age group. Outside, the Oudegracht canal sits below street level with cafés on the water, which kids find endlessly interesting to look down at. We go into more detail in our Utrecht with kids guide.
Naarden is the one most tourists skip and most local parents love. It’s a direct 24-minute train to Naarden-Bussum, then a short walk into a genuine star-shaped fortress town, moats, ramparts and all. There’s a full loop around the fortifications that takes about an hour at toddler pace, plus a small fortress museum if anyone wants to go inside. It’s flat, it’s compact, and there’s nowhere for a pushchair to get stuck.
Alkmaar means one thing to most people: the cheese market. It runs every Friday morning from late March to late September, 10am to 1pm, on the Waagplein, with porters in white carrying cheese on wooden sledges the way they have for centuries. The train takes around 40 minutes. Outside cheese-market season the town is still pleasant for a wander, but honestly, time it for a Friday if you can.
Hoorn is for kids who love trains, and this is the one place where the day trip is the train itself. From Hoorn station, about 35 minutes from Amsterdam, the Museumstoomtram runs a genuine steam train down to Medemblik, about 75 minutes each way, with stops at small villages along the route, one of which has a pancake restaurant right by the platform. A day ticket lets you ride as often as you like. It only runs on a set schedule, mostly weekends outside summer, so check their site before you go.
35 to 60 minutes south: worth the longer ride
Leiden is a 35-minute direct train and home to Naturalis, the Netherlands’ natural history museum, a 10-minute walk from the station. Dinosaur skeletons, a giant squid, drawers kids are allowed to open themselves. It’s one of the better rainy-day museums in the country and easily fills half a day on its own, with the old town’s canals and windmill left over for after.
Delft takes closer to an hour by direct train, long enough that we’d only do it as a proper day out rather than an add-on. Once there, though, the walk from the station to the Markt is barely five minutes, and the town itself is small enough that kids don’t get worn out just getting between things. Blue-and-white pottery shops, a canal-side market square, and a church tower you can climb are all within a few minutes of each other.
Rotterdam is a different city entirely, modern, vertical, built to be looked up at. The Intercity Direct gets you there in 40 minutes, though it carries a small supplement over a regular ticket. Miniworld, a five-minute walk from Centraal Station, is a genuinely huge model railway with a miniature Rotterdam, moving trains and boats, and buttons kids can press to make things happen. Outside, the Cube Houses and the market hall are both walkable from the centre. Our Rotterdam with kids guide covers the rest of the city.
The Hague is around 50 minutes by direct train, and the reason to go with kids is the beach. From Den Haag Centraal, tram lines including the 1, 9 and 11 get you to Scheveningen in about 15 minutes, or the seasonal Strand Express does it in 10. It’s a proper North Sea beach with a pier, arcades, and enough space to run. Combine it with an hour in the city centre first if the weather’s only half decent.
Making the train day actually work
A few things make the difference between a good train day and a long one. Buy tickets through the NS app rather than at a machine, it’s faster and shows live platform changes. Kids under 4 travel free without a ticket, and ages 4 to 11 can get a discounted child ticket when travelling with an adult, which is worth checking before you buy full fares by accident. Avoid the 7 to 9am and 4:30 to 6pm windows if you can, commuter trains get properly full. And check which platform your train leaves from right up until boarding, Dutch platforms do change.
All ten of these day trips from Amsterdam by train start at Amsterdam Centraal with no transfer required, which is really the point: fewer connections means fewer chances for the day to go sideways with kids. For more ideas beyond these, our guide to kid-friendly cities outside Amsterdam and the full places directory are good next stops when you’re planning the next one.
