Tickets for the Anne Frank House often sell out weeks in advance. This small group walking tour offers a meaningful alternative, retracing Anne Frank’s final walk through Amsterdam and ending with a Virtual Reality visit of the Secret Annex. It is a respectful way to experience her story and the Anne Frank House when museum tickets are unavailable.
Many visitors find that tickets to the Anne Frank House sell out weeks in advance. This experience offers a meaningful alternative that still brings Anne’s story to life. Join our small group walking tour through Anne Frank’s Amsterdam and finish with an immersive Virtual Reality exploration of the Secret Annex, a way to visit the hiding place when museum tickets are unavailable or to see parts of the Anne Frank House you will normally not visit.
Anne Frank is Amsterdam’s most famous resident. Every year millions of people travel to Amsterdam to see where Anne and her family hid from the Nazis during WW2. In this small group tour, we will walk along the last 600m of the route Anne and her family took on their journey to their hiding place, which was sadly enough, the walk to their final residence.
Together, we will travel back in time to the Amsterdam of WWII and experience the emotion and hope of Anne Frank during the dark days of the war as her story unfolds.
As we walk around the local area we’ll see the famous Westerkerk, the outside of the house where Anne and her family were hiding for over 2 years and the beautiful Prinsengracht.
Using Anne’s own words from her diary, we will learn about Anne and the ‘secret annex’. We will see what she could see from her refuge and the influence her story has had on people in the Netherlands and the rest of the world. Rather than a sombre story of loss and sorrow, this tour is also about tolerance and hope, because, as Anne wrote: “Don’t think of all the misery, but of all the beauty that still remains.”
We will finish our tour at a location near Anne Frank House. Here you will enter the Secret Annex via the magic of a virtual reality recreation (designed by the Anne Frank Foundation). As you go through the famous bookcase to the secret hiding place of the Frank family, you will find the rooms as though the Franks were still living here.
Unlike the actual house, the virtual house has all of the furniture and belongings in place. It gives you a true feel for what it was like to live there in 1942-44. There will be no crowds of people. You will have the virtual house to yourself to explore at your own pace. We believe this is as close to the real thing as you can get, without stepping foot in the house. Ideal for people with mobility issues (the house does not have a lift or disabled access), or those who haven’t been able to get tickets.
“The sun is shining, the sky is deep blue, there’s a magnificent breeze and I’m longing — really longing — for everything: conversation, freedom, friends, being alone.” – (Anne Frank, February 12th, 1944)
This tour offers a deeply personal way to learn about Anne Frank’s life, using passages from her diary throughout the walk to connect her words directly to the places she lived and moved through. The experience concludes with a Virtual Reality visit of the Secret Annex, where you can explore rooms that are no longer accessible in the real house, see the original interior, and move through the space at your own pace without crowds. With a rating of over 4.9, this is the highest rated Anne Frank tour in Amsterdam, trusted by thousands of visitors seeking a meaningful and respectful experience.
Price Includes
We will meet next to the small chess statue on Max Euweplein in front of Wagamama restaurant.
The Anne Frank House often sells out weeks in advance. This experience offers a meaningful alternative by guiding you through Anne’s neighbourhood and ending with an immersive Virtual Reality visit to the Secret Annex. The VR session takes you into parts of the house that you cannot see in real life. In the VR reconstruction the Annex still contains its furniture, so it feels as if the Frank family left only minutes before. Many guests say this gives a deeper understanding of the story.
The Virtual Reality reconstruction allows you to step inside every room of the Annex and even shows spaces that are not accessible in the museum, such as the attic where Anne spent many quiet moments. It is the closest alternative when museum tickets are not available.
The Annex has been recreated using verified measurements, original photographs and documented layouts. In contrast to the museum, where the rooms are empty, the VR shows the Annex with its furniture and personal items so you gain a more complete impression of how the families lived.
This tour is created by Amsterdam Experiences and is not operated by the Anne Frank House museum. Guiding inside the museum is not permitted. Because this experience is independent, we can offer a guided walk and a Virtual Reality visit even when museum tickets are sold out.
The story is shared with care and sensitivity, and many families find the experience suitable for older children and teenagers. Due to the subject matter we recommend a minimum age of ten years old.
The public tour is designed as a small group experience with a maximum of around fifteen guests. This creates a personal atmosphere and allows the guide to interact more closely with the group.
As we follow the trace of Anne Frank, you will walk about one kilometre in total, which is roughly 0.6 miles. The route follows the same streets Anne walked on the day she left her home for the last time.
The route is flat, but the cobbled streets and canal edges in Amsterdam can be uneven. Guests should be comfortable walking about one kilometre. If you have specific accessibility needs you can contact us for advice.
There is a toilet available at location where we have the VR session.
The equipment is suitable for all ages, although we recommend a minimum age of ten for both the walking tour and the VR session.
Yes. There is a non VR version for guests who prefer a classic walking tour. This version ends near the Anne Frank House. Click here for the Anne Frank Tour without VR
If you manage to secure museum tickets later, the experiences complement each other well. Many guests do both to understand the story more completely.
If space is available you can book at the last moment. You can check the live booking calendar on our website as this tour runs several times a week.
Anne Frank House tickets can only be purchased online via the official website and are released every Tuesday at 10:00 Amsterdam time for visits 6 weeks later. They sell out fast, especially between March and October. For a step-by-step guide on how to book, current prices, and what to do if tickets are sold out, read our complete guide to Anne Frank House tickets.
