When looking for a place to stay during your holiday, maybe you can try to pick a place at the countryside. It’s good to escape from the buzzing big cities every once in a while. That was one of the reasons why we chose Huis ter Lucht as our place to stay in Netherland last month. We discovered the guest house via airbnb.

This two-story apartment was part of a family farm located in North Holland. The apartment is modern and fully furnished, including an open kitchen. There were two bedroom upstairs, one was facing the front yard with a view of a canal about 10 metres ahead. The kids happily played mini slide that was located right in front of our door. There was a coin laundry in a small room at the end of the row where you could find spices and cooking ingredients left behind by the previous guest, which you could use freely. There was a rack full of discount cards for any kinds of interesting places or tourist attraction around Netherland, from museum to red light district tour.

Huis ter Lucht is located alongside Amstel river, in De Kwakel, about 30 minutes from Amsterdam. It is better to rent a car if you plan to stay here because it is quite far from public transportation route. To maximize our vacation time, me and my family went out everyday after breakfast and when we already prepped our lunch. Then we went sightseeing to other cities, and back to the apartment by dinner time.

What we loved the most about this place was the beautiful scenery and peaceful atmosphere. The view from the back porch was breathtaking. The silhouette photo above was taken around 9PM during sunset, and I only resized the picture without editing its colors. And let’s not forget about the cute animals around the farm. Every unit had a back porch facing the vast grass field. There’s a small pond between the porch and the field. There’s ducks swimming and hunting for fish in the pond. Sometimes from the porch we could see the cattles munching the grass, greeting us with their friendly moos. Oh, I even saw a beautiful white swan down the stream near the front gate. This was a cattle farm so there was no other livestock, but we met a few fluffy sheeps on the road outside the farm.

As someone who grew up in big cities like Jakarta, it’s not everyday that we get to meet a scene like this. We loved this place, a lot! The girls also had amazing experiences, suited up in red onesies before milking the cow, jumped on a big trampoline, rode go-kart, or played down the mini slide. Ellen, our host, was very kind. She even gave a small animal keychain to the girls on our last day. Glad that we chose this place, would love to comeback here if I can.