Amsterdam has canals, crooked little houses, world-class museums, approximately eleven billion bicycles, and enough beautiful architecture to keep a normal tourist occupied for days.
Naturally, I went to see the prostitutes.
Not because I was shopping.
My curiosity brought me here. Not my dick.
Amsterdam’s Red Light District, officially known as De Wallen, is one of those places everyone knows exists, everyone has heard stories about, and an astonishing number of tourists suddenly become very interested in urban sociology when they get within walking distance of it.
So, purely in the interest of travel journalism and definitely not because I’m nosy as shit, I went exploring.
DESTINATION: RED LIGHT DISTRICT AMSTERDAM
GPS COORDINATES
52.3719, 4.9026
CLOSEST AIRPORT
CURRENT WEATHER
scattered clouds (57F / 14C)
AIR QUALITY INDEX (AQI)
Good (25)
I WAS JUST WALKING AROUND, I SWEAR
Amsterdam’s Red Light District, better known as De Wallen, isn’t hidden on some sketchy industrial street where you need a password and questionable Uber driver to find it.
It’s right there in central Amsterdam.
One minute you’re wandering along a postcard-perfect canal surrounded by beautiful old buildings.
Then you turn a corner.
Oh. Hello.
Women in lingerie are standing behind illuminated windows while tourists slowly shuffle past trying desperately to look like they’re not looking at the women standing in lingerie behind illuminated windows.
Everyone is suddenly very interested in Dutch architecture.
The entire thing feels almost hilariously casual.
There are restaurants. Bars. Apartments. Churches. Tour groups.
And prostitutes.
Amsterdam basically looked at urban planning and said, “Fuck it. Mixed-use development.”
EVERYONE ELSE WAS “CURIOUS” TOO
The best part wasn’t actually the windows.
It was watching everyone else pretend they weren’t looking at the windows.
Because despite its reputation, a huge percentage of people wandering through De Wallen appeared to be doing exactly what I was doing.
People watching.
Couples slowly wandered past while pretending this was a completely normal sightseeing activity.
Groups of guys suddenly became fascinated by 17th-century Dutch brickwork the moment a woman in lingerie made eye contact with them.
Older tourists shuffled through looking like their Amsterdam canal tour had taken a catastrophic wrong turn.
And somewhere in the crowd was inevitably a guy explaining to his girlfriend that he was only looking because Amsterdam has such an interesting culture.
Absolutely, buddy.
Study hard.
But that’s part of the fun of exploring cities like Amsterdam. Much like wandering around London, sometimes the best strategy is having absolutely no fucking strategy at all. Walk around, turn down random streets and see where curiosity takes you.
In Amsterdam, eventually one of those streets starts glowing red.
De Wallen wasn’t particularly scary or dangerous.
It was just wonderfully fucking weird.
CAPITALISM, BUT WITH CURTAINS
If you hang around long enough, you start noticing how the whole thing actually works.
Someone interested in something more than cultural research approaches a window.
Eye contact.
Door opens.
Brief conversation.
Presumably there is some discussion about price, services and whether everyone involved wants to proceed.
Agreement reached.
Door closes.
Curtain closes.
Congratulations. Capitalism has occurred.
That’s it.
The whole process looked remarkably transactional and strangely mundane.
No elaborate seduction. No dramatic negotiations spilling into the street. No sales manager emerging from the back with a limited-time offer.
Honestly, I’ve been involved in enterprise software purchases with considerably more foreplay.
THIS IS NOT A FUCKING ZOO
The photographer part of my brain immediately noticed that De Wallen is packed with incredible street photography opportunities.
Neon reflections on canals. Ancient buildings. Tiny alleyways. Crowds. Bars. Red lights bouncing off wet cobblestones.
But there’s one extremely important rule.
Don’t photograph the sex workers.
These aren’t performers standing there for your vacation photos. They’re people working.
Stories about tourists getting aggressively confronted for photographing occupied windows have circulated forever, and I had absolutely no interest in discovering how much of that folklore was true.
So the camera stayed pointed elsewhere.
It’s the same lesson I’ve learned photographing everything from wildlife to culturally sensitive places around the world: sometimes getting the shot isn’t worth being an asshole.
If you want to know what actually goes into getting the photos that do make it onto this site, my Behind the Scenes of a Travel Blog article explains the significantly less naked side of travel photography.
SO, IS AMSTERDAM’S RED LIGHT DISTRICT WORTH SEEING?
I think so.
Not because you need to buy anything.
I certainly didn’t.
The fascinating part is simply seeing a place that operates completely differently from what most travelers are accustomed to.
You’re surrounded by gorgeous historic Amsterdam architecture, canals, bars, restaurants and thousands of tourists while a legal sex industry operates openly behind glowing windows.
Somehow, after a while, the windows almost stop being the interesting part.
The tourists become the show.
I wandered around, watched the awkward human behavior, absorbed the weirdness and eventually headed back toward Amsterdam’s considerably less naked attractions.
No transactions.
No mysterious disappearance behind a curtain.
Just another travel experience that started because I wondered: “What the hell is over there?”
Curiosity.
Still not my dick.
