Kayaking the Amsterdam Canals

Amsterdam has 165 canals, totaling 75km of kayakable waterways. Naturally, this is why we came to Amsterdam. Is the city even known for anything else?

James and I arrived here on Saturday morning. After checking into our “cube hotel” — which is like an extra comfy hostel — our priorities were food, sleep, and kayaking, not necessarily in that order.

A train ride to Amstelstation will bring you right to the doorstep of Kano & SUP, a rental place with an assortment of tandem and solo kayaks. You can book them by the hour or by the day.

From there, you have many route options, spanning from quiet, nature-filled paddling to bustling cityscapes.

We wanted to see the neighborhood we’re staying in from a different vantage point, so we headed toward Central Station. This took a couple of hours, because we took a pretty circuitous route around various attractions. Also, some of the canals turned out to be one-way only, which led to a detour or two.

The city really is filled with bicycles.

You’ll note from the photos that we’re not wearing lifejackets. This is because they’re not required and weren’t offered. In retrospect, we absolutely should have requested them. Sure, the canals are only a couple of meters deep and are entirely calm, flat water. But what we didn’t anticipate was the boat traffic.

This is what the Amstel looks like on a Sunday afternoon.

We had a couple of pretty scary encounters. At one point, a boat almost pinned us against the wall under a bridge (driver didn’t see us and quickly overtook us). Much more strangely, a tripped-out-looking guy jumped from the sidewalk into the water right in front of us, demanded money from James, then grabbed his kayak and tried to tip it over. Luckily, James had top-notch balancing skills and a surprisingly sturdy kayak. So, the literal shake-down attempt was unsuccessful and the guy swam away.

Anyway: we had an incredible day, but next time we will wear life jackets.

I think the boat houses were my favorite.