You left out the month of travel. It seems crazy to be considering setting out in a car with no room reservations during the height of what is expected to be another chart-topping crowded summer. Mr. Fodor could bum around without a room when he started writing in 1946, but that is long over. You'll have to take the most expensive or the least attractive leavings... unless you're lucky.
Where did you find that "fact" out about Amsterdam? I've been there five times, and have still not seen everything. Daytrips can take up to two weeks to see everything within 70 minutes of the main train station in Amsterdam, besides. I would not change rooms to stay in small towns, but Leiden, Den Haag and Utrecht are certainly worth sleeping in. Rotterdam is more special-interest, but it's a nice modern city, right by a UNESCO WHS windmill site.
In my personal opinion, there are no wooden villages left, those which Band of Brothers just left. Developers have built masonry single and two-home developments all around each tiny "old town". Some of the developments even have "fake" thatched roofs. I only mean "fake" in the sense of modern construction, not artisanal. The old towns are nice, but only good for an hour or two, except for special destinations like Antwerp, Gent, and Brugge.
One of my favorite quiet towns in the Netherlands is Amersfoort, which has a few historic buildings, and a great city-wall remnant. But it's a fully modern town with a bit of a historic town square. I feel the same way about Turnhout, Belgium. Which has a massive pharmaceutical plant just outside of town, in Beerse. What I like about them is the bustle of prosperous European locals, without as much tourism as the big cities, and without the Mall of America.
It's easy for the "Location Managers" of Van Der Valk to find a beautiful, modernized barge. Not so easy for tourists. And do you want to climb down into the interior each time you arrive with your suitcases or grocery bags? You are getting good advice about not renting a car; I've sat in traffic between Antwerp and Turnhout many times. (Business commute with full car of people unwilling to sleep in Turnhout because the Best Western there is so awful.) It's like the Long Island Expressway at rush hour. And I'm REALLY sorry I returned a rental car inside Amsterdam, after rural driving from Venlo. The last two miles were a nightmare of narrow, curvy, medieval one-way streets parked up by trade vans and recycling collections.
By the way, you can get to Turnhout from the Rooseveltplein Bus Station in Antwerp for a Euro or three, and it's a lovely drive for a tourist. It's how I saw the thatched developments. Train or bus back. I don't know how the restaurants in Turnhout survived the Pandemic, however.
