Amsterdam with teens: all the fun activities in a row!

What to do in Amsterdam with teenagers? Amsterdam is a great city for families with teenagers. There is enough to do for this target group to spend an entire weekend having a great time in the capital of the Netherlands. We’ve already written a great blog on what to do in Amsterdam with kids, but out of all those dozens of activities, we’ve picked some that are especially great for families with teenagers! Below is our list of top activities for a weekend trip to Amsterdam with teenagers.

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Amsterdam with teenagers

#1 Instagram Museums

Social media is obviously an important part of teenagers’ lives, and in Amsterdam you have several Instagram museums that have capitalized on this. For example, you can visit The Upside Down in Amsterdam with teenagers, where you can take fun photos in all sorts of spaces. Of course, there are some spaces where you can take pictures where it looks like you are upside down.

You will be given a card with a QR code when you enter, which you can have scanned in the various rooms, where pictures will be taken of you. Afterwards, you can then download the photos. Of course, it is also possible to take your own photos with your cell phone. In total there are 25 different rooms where you can take fun photos of the family or of your adolescents.

When we visited The Upside Down in Amsterdam, there were many teenagers in attendance, but also plenty of adults who enjoyed taking photos at the various installations.

A second Instagram museum you can visit in Amsterdam with adolescents is WONDR Experience. Basically, actually the concept at WONDR Experience is exactly the same as at The Upside Down only of course there are completely different rooms where you can take pictures.

We visited this museum when our daughter was very young (for her it was more like a playground), but if you want to get an idea of what the spaces look like, read our blog about WONDR Experience Amsterdam.

#2 The Amsterdam Dungeon

If you want to enjoy scares in Amsterdam with teenagers, The Amsterdam Dungeon is a very fun activity. As such, the minimum age to visit The Amsterdam Dungeon is 10 years old, and teens up to 15 years old should always enter accompanied by an adult.

What we love about The Amsterdam Dungeon is that it works with different actors in the building, which makes it all just a little bit more exciting. You walk from one room to another and in each room there is actually some kind of play being performed. A lot of the adults in our group also found it tremendously exciting.

In the different rooms, people are picked out who then have to do something. For example, Sanne was picked out as a witch and ended up at the stake. Check out The Amsterdam Dungeon ‘s website for more information on online tickets, as they are a lot cheaper than buying them at the door.

#3 Fun Forest Amsterdam

If you want to do something active in Amsterdam with teenagers, then of course a climbing park is always totally awesome! Our daughter is also a teenager now and we see her climbing with friends regularly. Because you have different levels, a climbing forest is suitable and challenging for every age group. Also for parents.

We ourselves always enjoy climbing with our daughter and thus doing an activity together. Teenagers must be at least 110 cm tall to climb in the Amsterdam forest, where the climbing park is located. Kids 12 years and older with a minimum height of 150 cm are allowed to do all the courses in the park.

Expect to spend half a day here in Amsterdam. You get instructions from a guide beforehand and then you go climbing independently for a few hours. Especially if you want to do all courses, you will be busy for a while. We climbed here with our daughter and wrote the blog Fun Forest Amsterdam about this activity.

#4 The Park Amsterdam

Another fun activity you can do in Amsterdam with adolescents is a VR experience at The Park Amsterdam. We as a family have now played different VR games with our daughter in several cities and every time it is a success.

You’re going to play some general games first, and that’s mainly to get used to the VR glasses and how to grab things with the devices in your hands, for example, and how to shoot.

Then you can choose from different games in which you can also choose, for example, horror-themed games that are suitable for kids as young as 12. The nice thing is that you are in the game with the whole family and you have to work together to pass the game. So this also makes it a fun activity to do together with your teenagers.

Check The Park Amsterdam ‘s website for prices, different games and opening hours.

#5 Anne Frank House

Visiting a museum in Amsterdam with teenagers may not be the first thing you think of when looking for activities for teenagers in Amsterdam. Nevertheless, Amsterdam has a lot of great museums that are also very suitable for teenagers. It just depends a bit on the area of interest what is interesting.

For example, the Anne Frank House is of course enormously impressive to visit and also definitely suitable to visit with teenagers. Many young people have already had lessons at school about World War II, which naturally makes them understand the museum better.

By the way, the Anne Frank House is a museum that is extremely crowded, so it is advisable to book tickets for this museum far in advance online. We already had one occasion when we couldn’t order tickets on the website even the week before our city trip to Amsterdam.

We visited quite a few museums in Amsterdam over the past few years, which is why we know that there is a great museum in Amsterdam for every family. We list below some of the family-friendly museums you can visit in Amsterdam with teens.

NEMO: this is the science museum of Amsterdam and in this museum you can do all kinds of scientific experiments. This is a museum that is especially suitable for kids up to about 14/ 15 years old. For older teens, this is a less suitable museum.

MOCO: this is the museum of contemporary art and street art. Of course, this is a museum that you kids really have to love. When we visited the museum, there were also a number of works by the world-famous artist Banksy hanging there.

Rijksmuseum: this is Amsterdam’s most famous museum and definitely one you must have been to once with teenagers. If only for the world-famous painting the Night Watch.

What is a great advantage of the museum is that the top pieces all hang together in one room, giving you a sort of summary of the museum. You can see this section in 20 minutes, so you don’t have to walk through the museum for hours.

#6 Ripley’s Believe it or not

Of course, you also have many attractions in the center of Amsterdam that you can’t really pigeonhole exactly what it is. For example, you can take teenagers to Madame Tussauds in Amsterdam. Here you can have your picture taken with all kinds of national and international celebrities, and nowadays the museum is also a lot more interactive.

Another attraction you can visit in Amsterdam with adolescents is Ripley’s Believe it or not. Here you have 600 different exhibits, highlighting all kinds of weird records and things. You can also take fun photos with teenagers at this museum, and the “museum” consists of five different floors.

We really enjoyed walking around the different floors and check out Ripley’s Believe it or not website for a better impression of what you can see here in Amsterdam.

Other activities Amsterdam with adolescents

Of course, there are many more activities you can do with adolescents in Amsterdam. It all depends on where the adolescent’s interests lie. Of course you have the standard activities you can do in Amsterdam.

For example, it is of course always fun to take a canal cruise with the family. You can do that with a large organized boat, where you can book all kinds of (drinks) arrangements, but you can also take your own boat

(with skipper if needed) and take a tour of the canals.

You also have several walking tours you can take through the center. We took a tour of the Red Light District, which we enjoyed very much. You also have several walking tours that focus on street art in the city. It depends a bit on the interests of your teen what they like.

Of course, Amsterdam also has many different parks you can go to with teenagers, with the Vondelpark being the most famous.

It is also fun to do an escaperoom in Amsterdam. This is also an activity that you can do very easily with the whole family and is also fun for teenagers. You have to use different games to try to break out of the room you are locked in.

Also in Amsterdam you have many different types of escaperooms you can play and many of these rooms are suitable for adolescents as young as 12, 14 or 15 years old. This allows you to choose exactly a room suitable for your adolescent!

It is also fun to take teens to Artis Zoo and visit This is Holland, where you fly over the Netherlands in a simulation.

Sailing in Amsterdam with your own boat-

Where to stay in Amsterdam with teenagers

You can stay in Amsterdam with teenagers just fine. You have a huge number of hotels suitable for families with adolescents. We’ve already stayed in dozens of accommodations in Amsterdam! Below we list some of the best rated accommodations that are suitable for families with adolescents.

Accommodations, where kids stay overnight with parents in 1 room.

Budget accommodation: MEININGER Hotel Amsterdam Amstel

Mid-range accommodation: The Hoxton, Lloyd Amsterdam

Luxury accommodation: Sofitel Legend The Grand Amsterdam

Also check out the entire list of accommodations in Amsterdam.