Discovering Every Corner of Amsterdam: The “Every Street” Challenge
I’ve traveled a lot, and I mean a lot. For years, I considered a place “visited” even if I had only spent a few hours there. Once, I spent an afternoon strolling through San Marino and counted it as checked off my list. In Liechtenstein, I stayed just one night after a dinner in the hills, and I did the same with Canada-visiting three times but never venturing far from the southern border. When I think about it now, it’s like standing in a field in Shropshire and claiming you’ve seen the whole UK. It’s a bit strange when you really stop to think about it. so is the idea of travel. But that’s’ another story.
Fast forward to 2021, when life handed me an incredible opportunity: a chance to live in Amsterdam premaritally. BREXIT. Before moving, I thought I had already “done” Amsterdam. I’d been at least ten times, wandering the tourist spots, eating in overpriced restaurants, and thinking I knew the city. But after settling in, I quickly realised I had barely scratched the surface. Every day, I stumbled upon something new-a hidden street, a quiet canal, a neighbourhood I’d never heard of. The joy of discovery was back, and I wanted more. I sought out the highest points, the biggest buildings, and even to the metro to the end of the line. ( I mean who knew amsterdam had a Metro – i thought it was all bikes and Cheese) And yet, there was always something left to explore.
I didn’t know what it was, but i was about to find out.
One evening over dinner, a friend told me about Ricky Gates’ “Every Single Street” project. The concept is simple: choose an area and visit every single street in that area. Easy Right?
Gates, after running across America, decided to run every street in San Francisco. His cross-country run was an attempt to understand the vastness of his country, but he realised that passing through cities didn’t give him the full picture. It was like “reading only one page of a book and calling it finished“. So, he decided to run over 1,300 miles, exploring the nooks, crannies, and hidden alleys of San Francisco. His YouTube video documenting the experience struck a chord with me.
There’s a line in the video where Gates says, “I now felt the desire to experience the immensity of a single pixel on the global map.” I loved that idea-it’s like taking the time to dive deep into a single sentence in a novel and discovering it holds more meaning than you thought. It reminded me of a quote from Nietzsche: “It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.” As someone who’s spent years traveling, often with a checklist mentality, I suddenly realised how much I was missing.
So, I decided to take on the “Every Single Street” challenge myself, but this time in the city I was living in: Amsterdam.
Every Street in Amsterdam: Where to Begin?
First things first-I needed to define what I considered “Amsterdam” for this project. Given the city’s layout and my time frame, I decided to focus on the area inside the outer canal belt, the classic heart of Amsterdam. That’s where I’d begin my adventure.
Day one came, and I quickly realised that tracking every single street was going to be more complicated than I had imagined. My printed map felt cumbersome, especially as Amsterdam’s January skies opened up and rain started falling . After a bit of frustration, I found an app that could track my movements in real time, drawing a red line over the map wherever I went. This made the whole project feel like playing “Snake” on my old Nokia phone. The nostalgia alone was enough to keep me going.
As I tell everyone who visits, by bike, Amsterdam became a whole new city. The canals, streets, and alleys I’d walked down so many times suddenly revealed themselves differently when I made the effort to truly cover every inch. The city’s grid might look straightforward, but it’s full of hidden corners, quiet streets, and unexpected twists. Each day, I discovered something new-a small café I’d never seen, a pocket park tucked away, or a beautiful houseboat nestled along the canal. Every ride felt like I was peeling back another layer of the city’s personality. And the biggest busier streets, well they were closed as it was lockdown and so the city was mine
Challenges Along the Way: The Joys of Repetition
Of course, with a project like this, some repetition was inevitable. I found myself riding down the same streets more than once, trying to figure out if I’d already covered them or if I was just circling back. I should’ve looked into the “Chinese Postman Problem” (which, for anyone unfamiliar, is a mathematical puzzle about how to efficiently cover every street in a network), but I hadn’t, so some extra mileage came with the territory.
Despite the repetition, there was something satisfying about knowing that I was gradually filling in the blanks on my mental map of the city. Every time I transferred my daily progress from my app to a larger map at home, I could see the red lines spreading out like veins, connecting every part of the city. It felt good-like I was really getting to know Amsterdam, street by street, canal by canal.
A City of Bicycles: Why I Chose to Ride
Originally, I’d considered running the project, just like Ricky Gates did in San Francisco. But Amsterdam isn’t San Francisco, and I’m absolutely not called Ricky. And in a city built for bikes, well, it felt natural to take on the challenge on two wheels.
Amsterdam’s streets are made for cycling, and it allowed me to cover more ground than I could have on foot. Plus, there’s a certain joy in biking through the city that you just don’t get when you’re walking or driving. The rhythm of my city bike, glided effortlessly along the flat city, a pattern only interrupted by the only known hills in the Netherlands: Bridges. The only real problem I faced was that it was cold and i was freezing to the bone being outside all day. Unlike race cycling, using a city bike up and down every street, doesn’t exactly get the heart rate up. YES it was burning calories but my core was getting cold from the breeze off the water despite the layers. Whats more and give that cafes and restaurants where shut, I tried to treat this challenge and more like an adventure in the Artic.
What I Learned from Amsterdam’s Streets
By the end of the project, I had cycled over400km through Every Street in Amsterdam’s city centre. What started as a curiosity turned into one of the most fulfilling projects I’ve ever taken on. I learned that there’s a big difference between visiting a city and really exploring it. It’s easy to get caught up in the tourist hotspots, but when you dig deeper, when you make the effort to see every street, you get to know the city in a way that most people never do. I honestly now really know where I am when out in the city. It’s like I’ve lived here for a lot longer than I actually have.
And just like Ricky Gates and the thousands others in his Tribe, I found such joy in experiencing the “immensity of a single pixel.”
Now, when I people say “I’ve been to Amsterdam“, In my head i respond by saying “really” with a smile on my face. That’s because when I hear those words coming out of my mouth, (I’ve been….) my inner voice says “REALLY???” Because the reality is closer to the fact that that all I did was pass through.
Final thought:
Outside of central London and my birth town of St Albans, the only other place which I have every been to is now Amsterdam –
What to do with the 130 unique passport stamps in my passport?