How I travel...
The best way to understand a city...plus everywhere I went with my perfect Amsterdam itinerary
As many of you know I travelled to Amsterdam a few weeks back. And Copenhagen before that. I was in San Francisco the week before last and now I’m sat having a Turkish coffee in Greece.
Whilst I realise this sounds like the travelling itinerary of an oligarch…let me explain. The first two trips were teeny weeny micro breaks, both of which I booked over a year ago and SF (as the locals refer to it) was for work. As for this Greek break, I’m here only because I have a pressing book deadline to get finished and because frankly I’m shattered.
But my point is this: I am lucky in that I get to travel a lot. Not having children definitely helps. As well as having a husband who similarly sees the value in seeing the world as much as you can. And because of this, I’ve started to figure out how to get the best out of place; how to tune into the frequency of a new city for example, or feel the heartbeat of a new area.
It’s pretty simple really and anyone can do it, but I’d sum it up as this:
Steal from people with better taste than you: Basically always follow the coolest people in the city you’re travelling to on Instagram. I know it sounds mad, but trust me, it works. In Copenhagen for example, a lot of my recces over the years have come from following super chef Frederik Bille Brah or Ganni’s Ditte Reffstrup. In Amsterdam I follow (and asked, because I know them a little) the girls who work at one of my favourite fashion brands, Kassl. Artists are good too; similarly gallerists and magazine editors. Basically if they’re stylish and native then they’re always going to have the best recommendations.
Read the local paper: With Google Translate there’s no excuse for not reading the local news outlet. I love doing this when I land in a new city. Understanding how the city works makes you feel instantly connected to it. I was in Carmel-by-the-Sea recently and I had a wonderful hour with a coffee reading The Carmel Pine Cone (I mean, what a name for a local paper). I knew what was happening with local schools, which restaurant had just got a new local award and that this was the sort of town where a newly hatched Snowy Plover bird makes it to the front page. (I also found out Brad Pitt now lives there, which sort of added to the frisson of the place.) Anyway it sorts of adds a new dimension to the place you’re in.
Ask the coolest wait staff: Because I often travel alone I normally get chatting to the waiters and waitresses at wherever I eat. If you’re eating somewhere pretty good then chances are the staff know their stuff, so I always ask them where they eat or drink. In Paris recently this is how I found one of my favourite new restaurants, plus news about underground art party that happens on the first of every month. (I was too scared to actually go because I suspect everyone was born after the year 2000, but it was still good intel.)
Lean on social media: I always, always use my Instagram as a source of truth for where to travel since most people who follow me have pretty similar aesthetic taste to me. It has yielded such helpful results over the years. Increasingly however I am leaning on my own Chat channel where I know so many of you go to get your travel intel. What I love about this approach is that no-one is selling anything or scared of the hotel replying like they do on Tripadvisor or AirBnb. (A reminder that all paid subscribers get access to this chat channel and can ask whatever question they want at any time. If you don’t have the Substack app my recommendation would be to download it as it’s much easier to access there. You can do that here.)
Use slightly old travel reviews: I love flicking through magazines reading the latest travel reviews but I’m always a little skeptical. Having been a journalist myself for over two decades and having written some of those travel reviews here’s what I know to be true: brand new hotels are never the best places to stay. Things tend to still be a little rough around the edges if you go too early; there’s no interesting crowds there yet and they’re basically still finding their feet with things like the chef and the spa menu. The sweet spot for me is about a year after somewhere has just opened. So I often read travel reviews online which are around a year old. Sounds crazy, but works a treat.
Never stay near the station: The station is almost always the worst place to stay in any city, so no matter how cute the hotel you’ve always got to walk through the grittiest part of town. I made this mistake in Copenhagen last year when I stayed in the lovely Villa Copenhagen.
Follow fashion journalists: Several times a year fashion journalists will get flown out to far flung corners of the earth to attend the ‘Cruise’ shows for the major fashion houses. This usually happens around April to June and those journalists (I know, because I was one) get to stay in the most tasteful hotels, eat at the city’s absolute coolest restaurants and dance in the best clubs. That’s because those major fashion houses will have spent money on a location scout to ensure the itinerary of that person is top notch. People worth a follow- and because I know them and they often reveal where they stay and eat on these trips include: Lisa Armstrong from The Telegraph, Avril Mair from Harpers Bazaar, Anna Murphy from The Times.
Do a tour..on day one: I’ve done a total 180 on tours. Once upon a time I though they were deeply uncool and for tourists in Hoka trainers who were interested only in seeing ‘the sights.’ I was wrong. Firstly ‘the sights’ are important. You want to see The Golden Gate bridge in SF because it’s remarkable! You absolutely should see Buckingham Palace. You just don’t want to spent all day getting there so you’re absolutely knackered to do anything else afterwards. City tours are great because you get to see the sights, someone else does all the hard work and you usually get to see a good cross section of the city, which is helpful in showing you neighbourhoods that you might not otherwise have had on your to-do list. So my advice: do one of those 2/3 hour city tours and do it as the very beginning of your trip.
I used all this intel when I went to Amsterdam a few weeks back and it was hands down one of the best trips of my life. And if you don’t believe me, I gave a sneak preview of this itinerary to a reader who went last week. They followed almost everything on it and said they had the best time. Anyway, it’s all below, plus a reminder that I put all my travel itineraries on here and they are always for paid subscribers only. Of course, paid subscriptions are not really just about the content but more about supporting the writers you enjoy and who you want to keep going. So if this is you a paid subscription allows me to do my best work here, week in, week out, just for you. And if paying is not possible for you then sharing costs nothing and is always the next best thing. Whichever you are able to do I am hugely grateful.
How to do Amsterdam in style
This is everything I did on a recent 3-day trip to Amsterdam, right down to the places I went for breakfast and the off-menu trips I took
