VacationSelector

Amsterdam or Prague?

Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Your match

Amsterdam
✓ Best match
65
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and nature & day trips with your weighting.

Prague
62
match

Wins on value for money and sights concentration with your weighting.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

The verdict

Choose Amsterdam if you want water and open country: 33 beaches nearby, more of the surrounding land protected, a wider range of kitchens, and more UNESCO-listed places within a day's travel.

Choose Prague if you want the compact trip, with about twice as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, three times the park space near it, warmer summer days and far more dry months.

Scoreboard

Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.

AmsterdamPrague
Beaches & swimming. Amsterdam leads by 40 points.40
AmsterdamPrague
Score400
Swim season months00
Beaches 10 km337
Coast distance24 km10,000 km
Water distance24 km—
Places to eat. Amsterdam leads by 8 points.8
AmsterdamPrague
Score8375
Restaurants within 2 km of centre1,9571,866
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km4429
Museums & heritage. Amsterdam leads by 8 points.8
AmsterdamPrague
Score8072
Museums within 10 km98138
Museums within 2 km of centre69100
Share of museums within 2 km %7072
Unesco sites within 50 km51
Nightlife. Prague leads by 7 points.7
AmsterdamPrague
Score7077
Drinking venues within 4 km1,5432,248
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre1,0781,457
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %7065
Nightclubs within 4 km114123
Nature & day trips. Amsterdam leads by 15 points.15
AmsterdamPrague
Score6045
Protected land share 50 km %2112
Landscape blanket share 50 km %08
Land share of disc %82100
Park area within 2 km49 hectares183 hectares
Good for families. Prague leads by 7 points.7
AmsterdamPrague
Score6875
Tourist attractions within 2 km7454
Park area within 2 km49 hectares183 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km33
Sights concentration. Prague leads by 8 points.8
AmsterdamPrague
Score6876
Notable places within 2 km196310
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Prague leads by 17 points.17
AmsterdamPrague
Score5875
Price level global79.255.2
Daily budget€181€107
Year-round weather. Prague leads by 4 points.4
AmsterdamPrague
Score5761
Monthly daytime high6.1 °C to 23.1 °C2.2 °C to 25.3 °C
Monthly rainfall42 mm to 85 mm22 mm to 80 mm
Dry months07
0255075100

Where they differ

Amsterdam has water and open land around it: 33 beaches nearby against Prague's 7, and 21% of surrounding land protected against 12%. It has 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Prague's 1, and a much wider range of kitchens, though restaurant numbers near the centre are similar.

Prague packs more into walking distance, with about twice as many notable places near the centre, three times the park space, somewhat more museums and drinking spots. The national daily budget estimate is €107 in Czechia against €181 in the Netherlands.

Where they are alike

Weather is where the two run closest. Both follow the same seasonal shape, a cold winter and a short warm peak, with July highs of 23°C in Amsterdam and 25°C in Prague, and roughly 1700 hours of sunshine a year in each.

They are also close on eating out, nightlife, museums and families: similar numbers of restaurants and nightclubs near the centre, drinking and clubbing concentrated in the core in both, and 3 theme parks within reach of each.

Which traveller are you?

Families are better served in Prague, which has about three times the park space near the centre and packs its sights into a walkable core, though Amsterdam has somewhat more attractions near its centre. Both have 3 theme parks within reach.

Eating and drinking: Amsterdam if the range of kitchens matters, since restaurant numbers are similar but the variety is far wider. Prague if you want more choice of places to drink; clubs are comparable and central in both.

Day trippers and museum-goers: Amsterdam has 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Prague's 1, and more protected land around it. Prague has somewhat more museums, all within a tighter centre.

What the numbers don't tell you

The beach count flatters Amsterdam: 33 beaches nearby against Prague's 7, but neither city has a month with sea warm enough for easy swimming, and Amsterdam's water peaks at 19°C in August. Treat them as shoreline walks rather than swimming.

The daily budget is a single national estimate of restaurant and hotel prices, one for the Netherlands and one for Czechia, not a measurement of either city. A capital can sit far from its country's average, by more than the gap between the two national figures, so it says little about what either trip actually costs.

When should you go?

The figures behind each month. Each row is shaded against that destination's own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Amsterdam
6
7
11
15
18
21
23
23
20
15
10
7
Prague
2
5
9
16
20
23
25
25
20
14
7
3
Sea temperature, °C
Amsterdam
6
5
6
8
12
15
17
19
17
15
11
8
Prague
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Amsterdam
71
63
58
42
59
71
85
84
78
81
80
84
Prague
26
22
31
27
65
80
76
79
44
36
30
30
Daylight, hours per day
Amsterdam
8
10
12
14
16
17
16
15
13
11
9
8
Prague
9
10
12
14
15
16
16
15
13
11
9
8
Sunshine, hours per day
Amsterdam
2
3
5
6
7
7
7
6
5
4
2
2
Prague
2
3
4
6
7
8
8
7
5
4
2
1

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Amsterdam: 1991-2020 normals, De Bilt (35.3 km from centre). Prague: 1991-2020 normals, Praha-Libus (8.1 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Amsterdam is at its best in July and August, when highs reach 23°C and the sea peaks at 19°C in August, though these are also its wettest months at about 85mm. April is the driest, 42mm with 15°C.

Prague peaks in the same summer window, warmer at 23-25°C and slightly drier than Amsterdam then, at 76-80mm. Its real advantage is either side: April at 27mm and 16°C, and September at 44mm with 20°C. Winter is the colder of the two.

Getting there

Flying fromAmsterdamPrague
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 5 m
€93-112
AMS · 12 km
1 h 55 m
€63-104
1 stop
PRG · 12 km
BarcelonaBCN
2 h 10 m
€130-171
AMS · 12 km
2 h 15 m
€111-155
PRG · 12 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 10 m
€178-300
AMS · 12 km
1 h 40 m
€86-113
PRG · 12 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
3 h 15 m
€166-175
AMS · 12 km
2 h 25 m
€118-136
PRG · 12 km
DubaiDXB, DWC
6 h 45 m
€318-346
1 stop
AMS · 12 km
5 h 55 m
€276-321
1 stop
PRG · 12 km
MadridMAD
2 h 25 m
€160-183
AMS · 12 km
2 h 45 m
€146-195
1 stop
PRG · 12 km
CopenhagenCPH
1 h 25 m
€171-212
1 stop
AMS · 12 km
1 h 25 m
€66-91
PRG · 12 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
7 h 35 m
€512-556
1 stop
AMS · 12 km
8 h 20 m
no fares
PRG · 12 km
SeoulICN, GMP
10 h 45 m
no fares
AMS · 12 km
10 h 20 m
no fares
PRG · 12 km
Punta CanaPUJ
9 h 10 m
no fares
AMS · 12 km
10 h 0 m
no fares
PRG · 12 km

The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-08 to 2026-10, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.

Before you go

MeasureAmsterdamPrague
Official languageDutchCzech
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Czech Koruna (CZK)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCE230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112 or 911112
Elevation-2 m235 m
Main airportAmsterdam Airport Schiphol (AMS)12 km from centre287 non-stop destinationsVáclav Havel Airport Prague (PRG)12 km from centre175 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureAmsterdamPrague
City population921,4681,397,880
People per km²4,2082,817
Museums within 10 km10188
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km51
Distinct cuisines in the centre9889
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone–

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Amsterdam or Prague somewhere new.

Browse every destination we have measured

Sources

© OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence. Place counts include data from Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0), assembled from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other providers. Notable-place counts from Wikidata (CC0), weighted by Wikipedia language editions. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Non-stop route lists from the "Airlines and destinations" tables on English Wikipedia airport articles, by Wikipedia contributors, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Currency from the ISO 4217 register maintained by SIX, cross-checked against country data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Price level from World Bank open data (PPP conversion factor for private consumption and official exchange rate), CC BY 4.0. Time zones from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); clock offsets computed from the IANA time zone database. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-09-01. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.