First in the Hearts of Students: Amsterdam

By PAT HARTMAN
News Editor

In The Examiner, Tara Entwistle-Clark offers a promising article called “Top 10 European student travel destinations.” On closer examination, these prove to be not the actual preferred destinations of college students, as we had hoped, but suggestions about where to take high-school groups. Entwistle-Clark knows about this because she has successfully led such groups several times. We quote one of her picks here:

Amsterdam’s draw starts with the Red Light District and the coffee shops, but the architecture, history, and people make it worth visiting again and again, even after the original “naughtiness” wears off!

In search of an objective report on the most popular European cities for the late-teens-and-twenties set, the places they are actually buying tickets for, we consulted Student Universe and found this helpful roster of the Top Ten Cheap Destinations:

Amsterdam, Netherlands
Varna, Bulgaria
Budapest, Hungary
Hanoi, Vietnam
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Krakow, Poland
Phuket, Thailand
Santiago, Chile
Dubrovnik, Croatia
Prague, Czech Republic

Not content to rest on our researcher laurels, however, we also retrieved Student Universe’s Top Ten Party Destinations, which are as follows:

Ibiza, Spain
Barcelona, Spain
Berlin, Germany
Prague, Czech Republic
Reykjavik, Iceland
London, England
Mykonos, Greece
Ios, Greece
Rome, Italy
Amsterdam, Netherlands

But that’s not all! For your convenience and delectation, we offer here the combined list of European locations both inexpensive to reach and guaranteed to show you a good time once you get there. The chosen few are: Amsterdam. That’s right, only one city made both lists. What does Kevin Dolgin think about Amsterdam? Well, in The Third Tower Up from the Road, he says the food is “resolutely uninteresting” and the people speak “one of the five ugliest languages on the planet (and I say that out of kindness . . . the other four don’t actually come to mind).”

In order to give us an unflinching look at the reality of contemporary Amsterdam, Kevin bravely visited the Hash, Marijuana & Hemp Museum, and also valiantly toured the red-light district, where women cater to the fantasies of men, and reported back, “These fantasies apparently involve heavy older ladies to a much greater degree than one would expect.”

Viva Amsterdam!

P.S. What is your vote for favorite European destination this summer?

photo courtesy of ardenswayoflife , used under this Creative Commons license