Top 20 WiFi cafes in Holland (that you can cycle to and work from).

As an au pair by day, a student by night, and an entrepreneur all the time, finding a place to get out of the house to work or study while living in the Netherlands became a hobby.

In the United States, in Sacramento, CA, where I am from, and most places in the U.S., it is completely acceptable to go into a “coffee shop”, as we call it, and order a coffee, set up your laptop and work for hours!

After living in The Netherlands for only a few weeks, there were a few things I had to adapt to. First, shouldn’t I have known that “coffee shop” means something very specific in the Netherlands? Fail. An immediate note-to-self was made after using the term to refer to a café once, and my friend said, “Sarina, it’s a café, not a coffee shop.” Coffee shops are places that surely sell coffee, but medicinal plants too. 🙂

Secondly, most cafés prefer that customers don’t camp out all day using the wifi. In fact, it is completely normal for a café barista to ask you each hour what you anticipate ordering next, or they might even ask you to move if you are taking up a prime-real-estate kind of table. Hats off to the Dutch, I love this! Keepin’ it real.

Here are a few places in North and South Holland that are cozy, have a decent amount of plugs, free and strong wifi, great coffee and the staff are welcome to entrepreneurs and students working. Most likely, you will be taking public transportation, so download the app 9292.nl, and you can find your way to each of these easily by bus, tram or train. If you are cycling, simply use Google Maps and select the bike-path option.