The Netherlands by Train: A Guide for First-Time Visitors

For a trip through the main Dutch cities, start by planning around trains rather than a rental car. They connect city centers while you spend your sightseeing days on foot and local transit. A countryside stay with places spread across a region calls for a different transport decision.

Start with the city pair and the actual station

Choose the station that serves your accommodation and outing, not only the city’s name. A hotel’s walk from the station is part of the transfer, particularly with luggage. The one-week Netherlands route uses two bases to reduce the number of times you have to do that journey.

Schiphol has its own railway station under the airport. If you begin in a city other than Amsterdam, plan the journey there directly. The airport arrival guide explains the first steps.

Contactless travel: one person, one card or device

For occasional travel on NS, eligible contactless Visa and Mastercard credit cards can be used to check in and out. A Dutch bank account is not required. Ordinary bank-card check-in is for second-class travel without a discount.

Each traveler needs a separate payment method. Tap in before starting the journey and tap out at the end with exactly the same card or device. Your phone, watch and physical card are not interchangeable for this purpose, even when they use the same bank account.

A separate ticket is a different method

You can buy a ticket instead of using bank-card check-in. When a ticket has a barcode, use its barcode at the appropriate gate reader. Do not also tap a bank card to open a gate for the same trip, because that can start another payment-card journey.

Tickets and passes cover different operators, areas and travel conditions. A city transit pass should not be assumed to cover a train between cities. Choose the product for the journeys you will actually make, rather than buying a pass merely because it has a familiar city name.

Keep operator changes separate from ordinary connections

Changing between NS trains within one journey is different from changing to another operator. When changing operators, use the correct operator’s check-out and check-in points. The operator name on a reader matters as well as the station you are standing in.

Decide where a car would add something

A route through Amsterdam, Delft, The Hague and Rotterdam does not require a car for the city sightseeing. A stay in Zeeland or the Veluwe needs closer attention to the last part of each journey.

If you use both train and car, collect the car when the countryside leg begins. For the larger route decision, start with Plan Your Trip.