Houseboat Museum

Experience the unique lifestyle of living on a houseboat in Amsterdam’s Prinsengracht district aboard the Hendrika Maria, a 1914 cargo ship converted into a museum.

Planning your visit

Around 2,500 houseboats are moored on Amsterdam's canals, and visitors constantly wonder what they are like inside. The Houseboat Museum answers that directly: the Hendrika Maria, a 1914 sailing cargo ship that carried sand and gravel, converted to a home in the 1960s and now open to the public on the Prinsengracht.

The interior is furnished as a working home — living room, sleeping berth, galley, bathroom — and the hold, which once carried cargo, is now the living space. Displays cover the history of houseboat living, the practicalities of water, electricity and sewage connections, mooring permits, and why the practice grew after the war when housing was scarce.

The scale is the revelation: considerably more space than the exterior suggests, and considerably less than a flat.

It is small — half an hour is enough — and it sits in the Jordaan, near the Anne Frank House.

Bookable options are entry tickets. Current availability is shown below.