re: Best area to stay in Amsterdam other than Centrum

Def get the NS app!

Trains are decent but as someone who works in Schiphol area, I can confirm that on my office days the morning trains from Amsterdam Centraal to Schiphol run like clockwork.

However the trains back to the city in the afternoon/early evening are a shitshow these days, perpetually crowded and delayed, literally the reason I told my team lead I’d only be coming to the office one day per week.

I digress NS app is a great way for me to track the perpetual delays at Schiphol in real time, 9292 is another good transport app for multimodal transit (train-tram-bus) but Google Maps is also quite well synced with public transport schedules so that is a safe bet as always.

As for tickets, nowadays you can pay pretty much everywhere by card (if your physical card or phone have tap-n-go enabled) but word of warning you check in and out when boarding and disembarking.

Especially important because some stations like Schiphol don’t have the turnstiles gates to get in our out so either you forget to check in there and can’t get out the gates at Amsterdam Centraal or you forget to checkout there and you’re charged a full fare (I think like €30+ 1 way for trains and maybe like €5-€10 on GVB transit) - it’s mainly the trams and buses where it’s easy to forget to checkout that gets you.

The GVB metros are all turnstile protected.