The Netherlands A Philosophy For Travelers

Learn at the Netherlands’s most prestigious universities.
Battle racism, fascism, and nationalism in Dutch politics.
Exhale knowledge of marijuana into wide-eyed tourists.
Cook a delicious meal of your choosing in a beautiful canal house.

As a tourist, you are always a foreigner. While hostel-hopping and sightseeing can be great fun, you may want to consider going beyond tourism. Experiencing a foreign place through studying, volunteering, or working can help reduce that stranger-in-a-strange-land feeling. Furthermore, travelers can make a positive impact on the natural and cultural environments they visit. With this Beyond Tourism guide, Let’s Go hopes to promote a better understanding of the Netherlands and to provide suggestions for those who want to get more than a photo album out of their travels.

There are several options for those who seek to participate in Beyond Tourism activities. Opportunities for volunteerism abound with both local and international organizations. Studying in a new environment can be enlightening, whether it is through direct enrollment in a local university or an independent research project. Working is a way to immerse yourself in local culture while financing your travels.

As a volunteer in the Netherlands, you can participate in projects from unleashing your inner superhero and combating fascism to tilling Dutch farmland, either on a short-term basis or as the main component of your trip. Later in this guide, we recommend organizations that can help you find the opportunities that best suit your interests, whether you are looking to get involved for a day or for a year.

Studying at a college or in a language program is another option. Though not as well known abroad as some other European university networks, the Dutch higher education system offers students extraordinary opportunities to study the application of cutting-edge social and scientific theories. As such, the Netherlands is a popular study-abroad destination because of the high quality of its certification, summer, graduate, and professional courses offered in English. Fittingly, international development, cultural cooperation, global economics, and sexuality studies all feature prominently at Dutch schools.

Many travelers structure their trips by the work available to them along the way, ranging from odd jobs on the go to full-time, long-term stints in cities. Those seeking work in Amsterdam should note that competition increases in the summer, and most employers strictly follow bureaucratic procedures for visa and work permits, perhaps due to recent attempts to curb squatting and drug abuse. All new employees should carry their passport or other form of identification to avoid trouble during inspections by tax and social security inspectors and immigration officers. To work in the Netherlands, foreigners must receive a civil service number (burgerservicenummer; BSN) from the local tax office (belastingdienst), both for themselves and for any family members. The process of getting work visas, which may also be required, involves more red tape.