The IJ Ferry Is Free and Nobody Told Me
I moved to Amsterdam two years ago. For the first three months I took the metro to Noord. Then someone at my startup mentioned the ferry and I stood on the deck for the first time watching the city from the water and thought: this is free. All of this is free. And nobody told me.
The GVB IJ ferries run from the dock directly behind Amsterdam Centraal (Pontsteiger, behind Centraal Station) to Noord on three routes. Free, always. The Buiksloterweg ferry runs every few minutes and takes three. The NDSM ferry runs every fifteen minutes during the day, thirty at night, and takes eleven minutes. Both operate through the night on weekends. The GVB website has the full schedule: gvb.nl.
In Tokyo, nothing is free. The ferry across the harbour costs money, the metro costs money, the bus costs money, the elevator in certain shopping malls costs money. The concept of a free public ferry crossing a major waterway in a capital city did not exist in my mental map of how cities work. It took me three months to discover that Amsterdam had one. I have thought about this often.
The practical details, because this is what I wish someone had told me: you do not need an OV-chipkaart. You do not need to tap in or out. You walk on, you stand on the deck or sit inside, you cross, you walk off. Bicycles go on for free too. The ferry operates in rain, wind, and whatever the North Sea sends across the IJ, and it runs on time with a reliability that would be unremarkable in Tokyo and is quietly impressive here.
I take it twice a week for work — my startup’s studio is near the NDSM. The eleven-minute crossing is the only part of my commute I actually look forward to. The city from the water is different from the city from inside it. You see the scale of things differently. The A’DAM tower, the harbour, the skyline to the west. On clear mornings the light on the IJ is the kind of light that makes you feel briefly better about whatever is happening at the office.
If you arrive in Amsterdam and nobody tells you about the ferry, this is me telling you. Go to the back of Centraal, walk to the dock, get on whichever ferry is leaving. Do not pay anything. Stand on the deck. Look at the city from the water. This is free. You are allowed to just do this.
