Best Amsterdam blogs: Photos, travel advice, food, and expat issues

Are you looking for some specialized Amsterdam advice or maybe a new point of view? The list below should provide you with some worthwhile options in quite a few categories. These are the best Amsterdam blogs that I follow and the best I can find.

For some strange reason, this city is extremely popular with weekend visitors but not quite so popular within the blogging community. Perhaps people aren’t as passionate about life in the city as they are about life in, say, Paris or Rome. Or it could be that English-speaking expats here have such an easy time getting along on a daily basis that there isn’t as much need for a support group as some other European cities.

Here are my 9 favorite sites, and all are regularly updated. If you know of a good one that I missed please alert me in the comments and I’ll check it out and will probably add it.

Amsterdamned – expat blog

This is really nicely written by an Aussie expat named Angela, who is more than willing to share some parts of her expat life with the online world. In addition to her normal activities, she takes the time to explain some interesting tourist attractions that aren’t quite so obvious, and offer help to newcomers who could use some untangling with the language and customs.

Amsterdam foodie – food blog

Truth be told, Amsterdam is not really known for its excellent cuisine, but don’t mention that to Vicky, the Brit who writes this entertaining blog. You can quickly tell from the photos and details she writes about that she’s a hardcore member of the foodie community, and she’s doing us all a big service by exploring Amsterdam and offering reviews and advice. Instead of just a long list of restaurants, she also has put together an interactive map plus various category recommendations to help readers find exactly what they want. This is probably the best English language Amsterdam restaurant site out there anywhere.

Amsterdam Happenings/Cosmo Polite – expat events blog

This is a new and interesting one that I’ve recently come across. It’s not set up like a normal blog so it can be a bit hard to navigate at first. But once you sort that part out you’ll find really good resources for newcomers to Amsterdam as well as people considering making the move. They list expat get-togethers, plus good information and links that will make living in the city easier for English-only speakers from elsewhere.

OneyearinAmsterdam – photo blog

This blog is extremely simple and with a simple premise. If you lived in Amsterdam for one year, what would you see? Torrey is from California and says she’s spending a year in Holland with her husband, so she’s decided to post a new photo every day to help friends and well wishers understand more about where she is living. Most of the photos are from Amsterdam, but there are also interesting sets from Delft, Alkmaar, Haarlem, and Utrecht as well. If you are daydreaming about moving to the Netherlands yourself, this is a nice and quick bit of inspiration.

Photodam.nl - photo blog

This is another daily Amsterdam photo blog, but this one has larger photos and tends to concentrate on the unusual and funny side of things. You’ll find plenty of snaps of tourists doing weird things, plus a good helping of cross-dressers and other local characters.

Jeltedeboer.nl - photo blog

This is a site I’d never heard of until the person behind it left a comment below, but it’s well worth a look. This is one of the simplest daily photo blogs I’ve seen, with no real title or agenda that I can see. But the photos themselves are stunning, and they appear to be all in black and white. This might not be a great site to get inspiration to visit Amsterdam, since the photos tend to have a bleak and artsy look, but again, the photos are stunningly good and look like they could each be in a professional gallery. For Amsterdam buffs and also photo buffs for sure.

Spotted by Locals: Amsterdam – local tips blog

I’ve written about this one before, but it definitely deserves a mention here as well. The spottedbylocals site covers about 20 major cities around Europe, and each one is packed with tips and stories from locals of that city, so it’s a great detour away from the typical travel sites that tend to give you the more common highlights. Since it’s part of a network, it’s also really nicely designed and easy to navigate, unlike some of the other sites run by one person.

GoAmsterdam.about.com – travel blog

This blog is a helpful addition to a really solid Amsterdam travel site, which is part of the NY Times-owned About.com network. It’s written and updated by the lovely Shannon McAllister, who is an American writer now living in Amsterdam. She’s got a knack for writing about the things visitors are really interested in, and she covers upcoming events well too.

Radio Free Amsterdam – internet radio channel

More of a pirate-style radio station than a blog, this outfit streams various music and public affairs shows from Amsterdam, with a little bit of everything thrown in, except nothing you might consider mainstream. This is the sort of thing you either love or would have a hard time getting into, but either way it’s at least worth a look.

Know of another good one?

Again, if you know of any good (and frequently updated) Amsterdam blog or website that I missed, please leave me a comment. I have a feeling there are many other good ones out there, but finding them can be challenging, so I’d love to compile all the best ones here to help out.

photo by Pieter Musterd on Flickr