Almere's best feature as a base is that almost everywhere in the central Netherlands is within an hour by train. Amsterdam is 25 minutes away on the direct intercity and makes the obvious day trip — but it is worth getting on a slow stoptrein and exploring the small towns and lakes around the IJsselmeer instead.
Lelystad, 15 minutes north, holds the Nieuw Land national park visitor centre, the Bataviawerf shipyard (with the reconstructed 17th-century VOC ship Batavia), and the Aviodrome aviation museum. Marken and Volendam, the much-photographed former Zuiderzee fishing villages, are reached by bus across the Gooimeer; Naarden-Vesten, with its perfectly preserved star-shaped fortifications, is half an hour by car.
