Is Amsterdam overrated?

Is Amsterdam overrated? It would depend on who you ask, and which rating you are talking about. To be concise and general though, I would say that it is definitely overrated. Of course, travel is great. And I love to see the world. But I don’t think Amsterdam is necessarily worth the trip. And I probably wouldn’t go back there unless I had a good reason, even though I am a horny guy.

I don’t necessarily have a problem with Amsterdam. It just doesn’t do anything for me. All the hype about the place is somewhat undeserved. And it is one of the reasons the place is so expensive. Taxis charge a lot of money. And that doesn’t pay for much. Because when you come out of the airport you are harangued by unlicensed guys in private cars pretending to be taxis. So even though you pay a premium, you feel like you’re in a third world city like Manila. Or New York.

After you get to town, you pay more than you should for small rooms in old hotels. The food around isn’t that great either. Even coffee shops and small stores selling water charge to much. If I’m going to go big like that, I’ll just go to Tokyo. Taxis are expensive there too, but you can get a decent hotel room for $60, a bottle of water for less than a dollar, and a blowjob for $27.

Honestly, I don’t see much available in Amsterdam that you can’t find in other parts of the world. That includes places that are very nearby. If I can go to Berlin or Vienna, I would chose them over Amsterdam. And if I found myself in Amsterdam, I would probably be looking for a quick flight or train to Germany or another part of Europe. Keep in mind this is my personal perspective as a guy who likes to travel solo, meet women, and have sex. I enjoy other things too. But I don’t like to go more than a day without sex. And for years, I haven’t had to.

Tourist cities are tough

Amsterdam is a major city in Holland. It could function fine without any tourists. But the fact is that people flood into the city from all over the world. And as usual this has a very negative effect on the ability of foreign guys to swoop in and pick up chicks.

On the one hand, tourist cities tend to draw in the kinds of girls who look for foreigners. I knew some Vietnamese chicks who were always hooking up with various white guys, even though they pretended each was their “boyfriend” for 3 to 5 days. They went to the Bui Vien backpacker area every week. I also knew a fat ugly Thai chick and her slimmer and sexier friend. They were into foreign guys too. So they often hung out in Khao San Road in Bangkok.

But generally speaking, the majority of women don’t want to deal with tourists. Even if they have ideas of getting with foreigners, most women quickly get turned off by a constant flow of guys in and out of the city. Especially when so many of the guys lie, say they’ll be back, or whatever else just to get the chicks in bed. The sheen quickly fades and reveals the dirty underside.

I sometimes regret missing the early days of Medellin. Back then it was supposedly a paradise for guys who flew in. Now they’ve all seen so many American and European guys come in and bullshit that they’re cold and turned off. You have to put in a bunch of work there. So what’s the point of going? Well in Amsterdam things are even tougher!

Prostitution in Amsterdam

Today, Amsterdam is probably most famous for two things. Those would be legal marijuana and legal prostitution. In the past the city was famous for much else including art and science. The fact that it is now most known for prostitution and weed probably says more about the rest of the world than it does about the Netherlands. But I digress.

I have already written a lot about the red light districts in Amsterdam. As you might be able to tell, they didn’t impress me much at all. If I had seen them when I was 18 years old and not exposed to the world, I might have thought they were amazing. But I first saw them after already traveling to places like Thailand and Germany. So I didn’t think much of them at all.

The red light districts are there. You walk through and chicks may or may not call out to you. If you step in and negotiate, you get a quick blowjob and a bit of sex. Sometimes they even try to charge you extra to change positions or take their tits out of their bras. Even if you were into this kind of fast food sex, Amsterdam wouldn’t be the best or most economical place. Over in Germany you can go through the laufhaus buildings and find rooms of prostitutes who will perform the same way for less money. Or you could go to red light districts in Prague and get better service for around the same amount of money you’d pay in Amsterdam. So what’s the draw?