Victoria Séveno* hails the ranking of her home city, Amsterdam, as one of the best travel destinations in the world.
In a new ranking, Time Out magazine has listed Amsterdam as the second-best city in the world to visit.
The magazine highlights the beauty of the Dutch capital’s historic centre as well as the wealth of parks and green spaces.
The COVID-19 pandemic may have changed the way we travel, bringing the tourism industry to a standstill for months on end.
However, as the world gradually reopens its borders to non-essential travel, many may be considering the destination for their next holiday, already looking forward to exploring a new country and a new culture.
With this in mind, Time Out polled 27,000 city dwellers from all around the world to determine the cities that have adapted to a new world post-COVID-19, looking into a variety of factors including culture, sustainability, community and food.
As a result of their research, the international magazine put together a list of the 37 best cities for visiting in 2021.
Competing against some of the most beloved and beautiful cities around the world, Amsterdam managed to secure a very respectable second place, coming behind San Francisco, but ahead of other popular European hotspots.
While many Dutch people may take issue with a number of aspects of life in the lowlands — for example, the healthcare system or high taxes and house prices — Time Out magazine found Amsterdam had much to offer tourists.
It praised the Dutch city for its abundance of green spaces and its sustainability, highlighting Vondelpark as the “city’s lungs”.
Amsterdam was also congratulated for the way it used the pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns to shift its focus away from showcasing art and culture, instead focusing inwards on its “famous beauty, history and community spirit”.
Time Out said the city had cemented itself as a “modern, environmentally-aware metropolis”.
While a number of big names missed out on the top 10 of Time Out’s list — from Sydney and Shanghai to Budapest and Boston — these are the cities that made it.
1 San Francisco; 2 Amsterdam; 3 Manchester; 4 Copenhagen; 5 New York; 6 Montreal; 7 Prague; 8 Tel Aviv; 9 Porto; 10 Tokyo.
*Victoria Séveno grew up in Amsterdam, before moving to the United Kingdom to study English and Related Literature at the University of York.
This article first appeared on the Netherlands-based I Am Expat website.
