Giethoorn & Zaanse Schans Day Trip: Small Boat, No Car Needed

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Free cancellationExcellent quality

1/33

Duration9h

GroupUp to 16

LanguagesEN

PickupAt your hotel

Navigate Giethoorn's canals yourself, then watch clogs being carved and cheese being made

This full-day small-group tour from Amsterdam visits two historic Dutch villages: Zaanse Schans, where you tour a working clog factory and cheese maker in traditional dress, and Giethoorn, a car-free canal village where you board a small electric boat and can steer it yourself past thatched cottages and wooden bridges. Hotel pickup is included, the guide speaks English, and the group stays under nine people on the boat.

Step-by-step itinerary

Explore Zaanse Schans and Giethoorn

Pickup from Amsterdam hotel
Visit Zaanse Schans windmills and green houses
Attend wooden shoes factory demonstration
Try on wooden clogs and shop souvenirs
Watch cheese-making demonstration and taste cheese
Free time for Dutch delights shopping
Travel towards Giethoorn with guide commentary
Take 1-hour small electric boat cruise in Giethoorn
Navigate boat yourself and see thatched cottages

The Experience

You're picked up at your Amsterdam hotel and driven to Zaanse Schans, a reconstructed 18th- and 19th-century village of green wooden houses and working windmills. A guide walks you through a clog factory where you watch a craftsperson shape wooden shoes, then try a pair on yourself. Next door, a cheese maker in traditional costume demonstrates how Dutch cheese is made, and you taste a selection before having time to shop. The stop takes about 90 minutes and includes a photo point along the River Zaan where all the windmills line up in one frame.

On the drive to Giethoorn, your guide points out the IJsselmeer (the largest artificial lake in the Netherlands), and the Afsluitdijk, a 32-kilometer dike built between 1927 and 1932 as part of the Delta Works. Giethoorn itself has no main roads. Everything moves by water. You board a small electric boat with a maximum of nine people, and here's the difference: you can take the wheel and navigate the canals yourself, steering past more than 150 arched wooden bridges and thatched-roof cottages. The boat trip lasts about an hour and stays small enough that you see the village as locals do, without the crowds of a larger tour boat.

The full day runs nine hours from pickup to drop-off. If you prefer a bigger covered boat with 40 passengers, that's available at your own cost and by separate arrangement, but the small open boat is what comes with the tour. It's the reason the experience feels local rather than touristy.

What’s included

Hotel pickup and drop-off at your Amsterdam location.
professional English-speaking guide.
transport by coach or van.
90-minute stop at Zaanse Schans with demonstrations and tastings at the clog and cheese factories.
one-hour guided boat tour on a small electric boat in Giethoorn where you can steer yourself.
and views of windmills, the River Zaan, and over 150 wooden bridges.

Good to know

Easy physical levelPublic transport nearbyNot for heart conditionsNot for back problems

Operated by Cherry Travel & Tours

Is this one for you?If you're arriving without a car or staying in Amsterdam without transport, the hotel pickup and fixed schedule remove the logistics. You don't arrange how to get to either village or coordinate timing between stops. The small boat in Giethoorn is the trade: it stays under nine people and stays open, so you see the canals and cottages clearly instead of sitting in a covered cabin with forty others.