12 May 2025

Amsterdam Vs Thailand

We moved to the Amsterdam suburbs one year ago, after 5 years in Bangkok and one year in Phuket.


Every couple of days a thought comes up of what I like and dislike.

This article is to keep track of these, to help make choices in the future.

Because we do know, that Amsterdam isn’t our final destination...

The Dutch Infrastructure is Great

I love infrastructure, that's why this comes first.

The Dutch infrastructure is amazing: the bicycles paths are the eight world wonder, safe and convenient, there is no comparison in the world; The highways and public roads are in perfect shape and continuously improved.

Public playgrounds are ubiquitious and challenging, for our kids, and at moments even for me!

Trains and buses go at high frequency. They're probably less punctual than the Swiss or the Japanese, but because off the high frequency it doesn't matter that much. The bus lanes and train routes are optimised for speed and continuously improved.

Hope as a key variable

This is a common thread for me: continuous improved, in the Netherlands - at least for infrastructure - there is hope on improvement if something is wrong today.

We had a little sand path in front of our house which people used as a shortcut. I mailed the community and they made it into a paved path. When things can be improved, it generally will be done.

Despite the great infrastructure, and despite the broken window theory, there is more trash around than I would expect, in playgrounds, trains, buses and public spaces overall. In some parts of Asia, eating and drinking on public transport is prohibited, it keeps at least trains and buses spotless. That would be killing the symptom though, the real problem lies deeper.

There is no Optimism

Remember what I said about improving infrastructure? There is real hope that Dutch infrastructure improves year over year. We can see it, we can feel it. It was the same in Bangkok, they were building everywhere. Less so elsewhere in the Dutch society, there is an overall lack of optimism. Sometimes even apathy.

People don't smile easily here. Worse, people seem to be afraid of each other. Smiling to a stranger feels inappropriate. Let alone talking to a stranger.

There are some real problems, like a lack of affordable housing....

Aging Population

I believe age also has something to do with it. The Dutch population, and Europe's population overall, is old. An abundance of older people takes the life out of a society. I'm well aware I'm not the youngest myself anymore, and soon will be part of the problem. Until that point, I would like to live in an environment which exudes energy.

This was also a problem when we lived in popular tourist destination like Phuket. They are full of old people. It's not their fault obviously, but the skewing demographics are not a good thing.

One of the strongest driver of deciding where to live should be where we find young couples like us, with kids the same age. Neighborhoods full of kids exist in the Netherlands, but they are pockets. We currently live in a rather older neighborhood I feel.

Moving to Asia won't solve this, as this is a global problem. Developing countries like India or most of Africa are the only ones with a young population.

Moving somewhere will solve something else: finding like-minded people. Foreigners living abroad are there with a purpose, not by coincidence, they tend to have better stories. From all the criteria in this list, people and community are among the most important.

Life is easy when it's 30 degrees every day

I don't know how better to express this, but life was EASY when it was thirty degrees every day. I walked outside and jumped on the bicycle or motorbike, the kids played outside.

People were more enthusiastic. Image being spontaneous and enthusiastic when you're huddled into your collar against darkness, wind, rain and cold. I tried it and it takes an active effort to walk upright when the whether is bad.

But...
for me it was too hot, at least 4-5 months out of the year. My wife will disagree, but the warm season, when the sun burns vertical on my head, is unbearable for me. Climate change will probably exacerbate this.

We Are Scoring Own Goals in Europe

Europeans like to bitch, as I'm doing in this article.

We try so hard to focus on consuming less:

Less energy, less travel, less food waste, ...

We celebrate people who use as little energy as possible, who don't use a water cooker, who suffer through the heat rather than using the AC.[1]

We shouldn't!

We have only one path forward: to create more abundance, for everyone. The alternative is standing still, which means a life of decay.

To create abundance, we need to believe in more energy, more travel, more diversity, more innovation. We need that ambition to believe we can do it all.

[1] DHH, Levels, Levels again, and Levels again

Why Amsterdam is not forever

Bangkok is a great city, but we left because when we had children, 4 months of yearly recurring air pollution was too much. But more importantly, there is no hope it will be solved.

Then we moved to Phuket. Which is a great place. And many people realised this. And the local government welcomes them all, because they see dollar signs. But there is no vision or plan for the infrastructure. And hence, the traffic is absolutely terrible. And again, there is no hope. It will only get worse in the next 5 - 10 years.

My wife is Dutch, I’m Dutch-speaking Belgian. The Netherlands feel familiar, while Thailand was a foreign country.

I miss the sense of feeling abroad, feeling the adventure.

I guess that tops off the top three criteria: a sense of hope, an optimistic community, and a sense of adventure.

Appendix: Where to Go

The perfect location doesn't exist, but the places below are on my radar. This list changes every month, but I feel I have to write it down somewhere.


This is a never-ending article. I started May 12 2025, my latest update is Sep 5 2025.

Learned with ❤️ from The App Brewery