We will be in The Netherlands in April for 6 nights and would like to commute roundtrip, by train, from our hotel in Leiden to Amsterdam, then another day to Haarlem and so on, taking day trips to and from Leiden. Is there a local train 'pass' for, say, 5-7 days? I hate to 'waste' a Eurail pass on these short trips but also don't want to have buy a ticket every single day.
Thank you, Elizabeth.
Posted by
Vernon, Canada
32220 posts
Elizabeth, I don't have any information on the Pass, but I wanted to mention that you'll need to have CASH for buying tickets in Amsterdam. They ONLY accept "Chip & PIN" credit cards, even at the staffed ticket windows. Cheers!
Posted by
OP
Eugene, Oregon, USA
10 posts
Thank you - good to know ahead of time!
Elizabeth
Posted by
Minneapolis, MN, USA
8700 posts
You could each buy an OV-chipkaart and load them with enough euros to cover all your day trips. If the money on your cards runs low, top them up. You can get a refund on unused money when you leave the Netherlands. At the bottom of the page on the above link is a link to a PDF brochure telling how to use the card.
Posted by
Tilburg, Netherlands
2829 posts
Daily national train passes were abolished two weeks ago. Only promotional tickets sold, sometimes, at specific stores do still exist (but you can't rely on them being sold exactly on the days you'll be there) The best solution, as Tim said, is to buy an OV-Chipkaart, load it with, say, € 100, than take any money left as a refund when you are leaving the country. The OV-Chipkaart is extremely easy to use once you learn its 1 1/2 elementary rules (always check in and check out - except when transferring from a NS train to another NS train) and allow you to use local public transportation as well (for instance, if you end your day near the Museumplein and don't want to walk all the way to the train station, you can just take a tram paying with the same card).
Posted by
OP
Eugene, Oregon, USA
10 posts
The OV chipkaart it is! Thank you, too, for the information about a refund for the unused portion.
Elizabeth
Posted by
New York, NY, USA
11294 posts
For learning how to buy and use an OV Chipkaart, this post on TripAdvisor was invaluable. You will be getting the Anonymous card, and it saves a lot of money on local transport (your trips within a city are charged to the penny, by exact distance). The only practical way to refill (for those without a chip and pin card) is with cash at a train ticket window; there is no surcharge for refilling a card (unlike for buying train tickets), so a 20 euro note gets you 20 euros of credit. Also beware that you must have at least 4 euros credit on the card to take local transit, and 20 euros of credit to take an NS train.
Posted by
Seattle, WA, US
1005 posts
Has anyone from outside of the Netherlands ever gotten a refund for an OV-Chipkaart? I was told you can only get a refund if you have a Dutch bank account. So putting 100 euros on a card as a deposit might not be such a good idea.
Posted by
New Paltz, NY
9102 posts
IMO the OV Chipkaart for a tourist spending just a week in Holland is a kind of overkill. After all you're going to have to deal with the ticket counters anyway to buy it, refill it and get a refund. I would just buy tickets at the station as needed, it's not that big a hassle.