Off the Beaten Path: NDSM Werf, Amsterdam

We asked the good people at Wonderbread where we should go in Amsterdam to see some awesome street art, and they told us to take a little cruise over to NDSM Werf. Located across a small canal of the North Sea, NDSM Werf is an abandoned ship yard, which closed in 1984 when the shipbuilding industry sank (sorry, terrible joke). As our boat approached the dock, we spotted the graffitied submarine above, and knew we were in for something awesome.

Interestingly, in the past few years NDSM Werf has become a haven for creative types to start new businesses, and artists to set up shop. For the first time in nearly 30 years, new life is coming to this once defunct area of Amsterdam, and it's very exciting to see. There's a ton of graffiti around, and we even found a huge skatepark in an old warehouse that also houses studio spaces. The whole place has a kind of post-apocalyptic vibe, but we bet in a few years it's going to be one of the coolest (and no doubt expensive) places to live. If you have some free time in Amsterdam, definitely take a few hours to explore NDSM Werf, before it's discovered by the masses.