Practical fact: Schiphol is built literally on top of one of the busiest train stations in the country.
Virtually all major cities have a direct rail connection to it, with frequencies from 2x / hour all the way up to 10x / hour. No direct connection? There's probably a one-transfer option running 4x / hour.
It's a five-minute walk from the train platform to the check-in desks. It is closer than the taxi stands or the parking shuttle. It is definitely cheaper than them as well. Level boarding is increasingly common, so there's a good chance you can just roll your luggage onto the train. The trains are generally clean and safe, homeless people and drug addicts on the train are incredibly rare.
If you visit The Netherlands, don't bother exploring other forms of transport until you are absolutely certain that rail transport is impossible. You'll just be wasting money and making things needlessly difficult for yourself.
If you're limiting yourself to carry-on, or even allowing for a (small) checked bag, there are bicycle panniers you can easily mount on the bike and then either carry aboard the plane or check.
Heck, you could pack a bicycle travel bag and pack your bike itself as checked luggage.
NYTimes Wirecutter has had some decent pannier reviews. I've had good luck with Arkel bags. Ortlieb look pretty bombproof.
Maybe that’s why the “elektrische bakfiets” (electrified cargo bike) is really popular here in the Netherlands. I’ve got one and don’t even live anywhere near an airport, closest one is at least an hour by car.
The Dutch have a saying, “Je bent niet van suiker” which means “You’re not made of sugar.”
Rain here is a fact of life, similar to the UK or Vancouver, Orlando or the Amazon Rainforest. Everyone who uses a bike for transportation here has a good rain jacket. And to put things in perspective, the normal rain seen in the Netherlands is more of a light drizzle and it generally comes in fits and spurts as moist air is pushed inland from the ocean. If you can afford to wait an hour, the rain is probably stopped.
Also, getting to the airport with a bike in the Netherlands is fine! There are nice protected bicycle lanes, a nice parking garage, good connections to neighboring infrastructure and you can always bring your bike down to the train platform if you need to go a bit further. When you live in a country that prioritizes cycling infrastructure, taking a bike is the practical, cheapest, and often fastest way to reach your destination.
Now to end on a point of more agreement, I agree with you that the demonization of AC in much of Europe is silly. Nobody is upset that in Bangkok or Tokyo that every building has AC. For some reason a certain type of European just doesn’t want to adapt and they will fight tooth and nail to prevent others from utilizing their own economic means in order to stay comfortable in their own homes. My home has solar panels and during the summer they produce much more power than I can utilize at one given moment anyway so if I want to run my AC at 400W during the peak heatwave that should be of no concern to anyone.
English actually has the exact same saying "You're not made of sugar, you won't melt."
A lot of people in car dependent regions have forgotten that you can dress for the weather, and that people have been traveling in all sorts of weather for hundreds of thousands of years.
Also, I think some of it is that decent parts of North America are vulnerable to heavy thunderstorms with hail and possible tornadoes, which are very different from the drizzle that Vancouver and Seattle get.
Like any Dutch mom would say to their kids complaining about cycling in bad weather: you’re not made of sugar are you? (Meaning: you won’t melt due to a bit of rain, quit being a pussy).
What about a unicorn shitting a rainbow onto your head?
The problem with "but sometimes..." arguments is that the "sometimes" rarely happens. For example, at www.hetregentbijnanooit.nl someone tracked how often it rained during their daily commute of 2x 45 minutes of cycling. Over an 11-year period, 90.3% of the commutes were dry - and that number would be even higher for people with a shorter commute, or those willing to wait a few minutes for the current rain squall to pass. Invest $100 in a luxury rain coat and the problem is solved.
Besides, in a country like The Netherlands the car is the less than ideal transport option! It is expensive, you keep getting stuck in traffic, you have to search for an available parking space, you can't park right at the door of your destination, and so on. For intra-city people movement, a bike is almost always the most convenient option.
Does it sometimes suck? Yeah, of course, but it sure beats getting stuck in traffic every single day.
For intra-city trips the car is not a superior mode of transport in the Netherlands. Cars take longer, often can't get as close to your destination, and cost a lot more. And you can't even get a few drinks. The only advantage of a car is you won't get wet if it rains.
You’re right, it’s not ideal. That’s why people in the Netherlands invented a special technology to compensate, which they call “clothes.”
Clothes are not really an ideal solution compared to surrounding yourself with a 4,000 pound piece of machinery that costs $50,000, loses half its value in 3 years, and degrades your mental and physical health.
Honestly avoiding people on the street improves my mental and physical health by reducing chronic cortisol. These fuckers stare at you and worse. A day of this and i am an anxious wreck.
It’s better to just get in your tanklet. Your little oasis. Home away from home.
That’s how i move nowadays from most point As to Bs. Music, AC, glasses. Perfect privacy. Calmness. Peace.
Kilograms of metal between you and the vicious, antagonistic reality of 2026 AD
It’s not just a car. It is an armor for the times like these.
lol, I can't tell if your comment is satire. Home of the brave, right? Where people looking at you is considered scary?
I'm a lot more scared of car crashes, since in most years they kill more people in the US than firearms do [1], and that's a pretty morbid statistic considering 58% of firearm deaths are suicides. [2] In other words, all those bullets flying at you as you walk down the street are less than half as deadly as driving in your vehicle.
I would encourage you to look in your local newspaper/news website and see how often someone loses their teenager in a car crash versus how often someone loses their teenager to violence on the street. I didn't lose any classmates to violence, but I lost at least one classmate to a car crash.
Here's another exercise: stand at a sidewalk at a traffic light intersection and count how many people in cars are actively on their phones.
The most statistically dangerous thing that happens to people walking is being hit by cars.
Somehow I doubt the Dutch are staring at each other with violent eyes and wishing they could cower away from the sidewalk into the safety of their RAM 1500 Crew Cabs. I struggle to imagine how that would happen: you can't even stare at people as you ride by them in the bike lanes in the Netherlands, the cyclists are going way too fast for that.
> Honestly avoiding people on the street improves my mental and physical health by reducing chronic cortisol. These fuckers stare at you and worse.
... you do realize that you are also "these fuckers", right? It's like complaining about "being stuck in traffic": no, you are the traffic.
The people on the street are just people. They aren't any different from your coworkers, your family members, or the parents of your kid's classmates. If merely being in the presence of other people causes you serious anxiety, you might want to consider asking a medical expert for potential therapy options before it gets even worse and you're left unable to leave the home at all.
I've biked to the airport lots of times. It depends on where you're going of but for short-ish trips a backpack is often though. And I did also once bring a suitcase on a (non electric) cargo bike. Worked fine.
There are bicycle lanes everywhere in Holland. I don't know a single person that bikes to the airport. From Amsterdam its at least 30 minutes by bike from the city center. Actually have no idea where I would park the bike. It's not common and not practical at this point.
I've cycled to Copenhagen Airport. A friend who lives about 15 minutes away (by bike) presumably cycles there when she flies for short meetings with just a backpack.
Virtually all major cities have a direct rail connection to it, with frequencies from 2x / hour all the way up to 10x / hour. No direct connection? There's probably a one-transfer option running 4x / hour.
It's a five-minute walk from the train platform to the check-in desks. It is closer than the taxi stands or the parking shuttle. It is definitely cheaper than them as well. Level boarding is increasingly common, so there's a good chance you can just roll your luggage onto the train. The trains are generally clean and safe, homeless people and drug addicts on the train are incredibly rare.
If you visit The Netherlands, don't bother exploring other forms of transport until you are absolutely certain that rail transport is impossible. You'll just be wasting money and making things needlessly difficult for yourself.