Hotels, transportation, visa

Visa requirements
Hotel
Transportation
Maps

Visa requirements

To visit the Netherlands, you will need proper documents which might include a visa. Please visit the Netherlands Embassy in your country for more information. Please do this well in advance, since a visa application can take up to three months!

If you need a personal letter of invitation to attend the conference, please contact Courtesy Associates. Be sure to provide your complete mailing address so that a signed letter of invitation can be mailed to you via standard mail service. Please note that the Intermag Conference cannot contact or intervene with any Embassy of the Netherlands or Consulate office abroad on your behalf.

Hotel

Reservation of the official conference hotels, with discount, can be done through the RAI Hotel Service. For the Intermag 2002 participants more than 700 hotel rooms have been reserved in various price categories. Hotel information and booking details can be found at the RAI_Hotel_Service link on the left.

For those participants looking for alternatives, there are many ways to make hotel reservations over the internet or by phone. All Amsterdam hotel personnel speak excellent English, so making reservations is very easy.

Some places you can try:

Please make your hotel reservations as soon as possible, because during the Queens day celibration there will be many tourists in Amsterdam looking for accomodation as well.

Transportation

Like with all big cities in the world, also around Amsterdam pickpockets are active, especially at busy places like the airport, trams and trains. Take care of your belongings and never leave your luggage unguarded.

How to get where:

To the RAI Conference center
- By plane: As many as 80 airlines fly to Amsterdam Schiphol International Airport, conveniently located in the heart of Western Europe. On arrival, you can board a train carrying you directly to the RAI train station (4 lines per hour) within less than 10 minutes. You will arrive at the RAI station, which is within 7 minutes walking distance of the congress centre. Please take the train station exit showing the direction RAI.
- By train: International trains from Roosendaal/Belgium/France connect at Schiphol with trains going to the RAI train station. The fastest way to reach the RAI if you are coming from Arnhem/Germany is to take the train to Amsterdam Duivendrecht station. Here you can change trains for RAI station. There is also a direct train connection with the RAI station from Rotterdam, The Hague and Leiden.
  If you arrive at Amsterdam Central Station you can take the Amsterdam express tram 51 (travelling time 12 min; exit at the RAI train station) or tram 4 (travelling time 30 min; exit at the RAI Europaplein.
- By car: Directly on approaching Amsterdam via the A1 motor way (Amersfoort/Amsterdam), A2 motorway (Utrecht/Amsterdam) or A4 motorway (The Hague/Amsterdam) and entering the ring road Amsterdam (A10), the RAI is indicated on signboards, which show the route to the RAI multi-story car parks. The RAI is located right next to the Amsterdam ring road (A10) at exit S109. Signboards refer repeatedly to the RAI.
For more details, Use the RAI Hotel service planner.
To and from the Airport
Use the Schiphol transportation site. It even tells you how to travel by bike!
To your hotel
To travel from your hotel to the conference center and into town, you can use Amsterdam public transport. Find out more about schedules with the public transport planner or the Amsterdam Transport site (both in Dutch) Amsterdam Day-tickets can be used on all public transport buses (and night buses), trams and metro's in Amsterdam. Once a ticket has been stamped for the first ride, it is then valid for the period indicated on the ticket. Amsterdam Day-tickets are available for any number of days up to nine. The Day-tickets can be purchased at the Central Station and the Scheepvaarthuis. Day-cards for a single day can also be purchased at all metro-stations. The price of the ticket is about 5 Euro per day.
Out of Amsterdam
Public transport in the Netherlands is excellent. Use the train or general public transport planner to plan your trips. Most major European cities can be reached by high speed trains, for schedules see the international train planner.

Useful maps

Leon Last modified: Sun Apr 14 16:06:11 CEST 2002