I'm travelling to Amsterdam in July and to be honest i'm fed up with the price of the 'dam and i've been looking at other towns to day-trip to.
Zandvoort is 5 minutes from Haarlem and has a beach.
The Yanks coffeeshop gets excellent reviews and as i'm going in July a beach sounds awesome.

Has anyone been that can offer any insight?
Also any insight into other dutch towns would be awesome .

I spoke to some Irish girls in the dam last year who rented a canal boat and just went up and down the country goin to the coffee shops, sounds like an ace way to do Holland. Apparently the coffeshops in other towns are higher quality at a lower price
That way you can see all the dutch towns and apparently its fairly cheap....

whats up bro, hey i went amsterdam about this time last year, i stayed in haarlem actualy and went to zanvooort just for a day when it was beautiful weather. haarlem has great coffe shops, the one that stands out would be 'birdys', it was a big , spacious place, nice modern decor, and compleatly empty. the lady recomended something buy the title bio wiet' if i remeber was nice tasty india,good prices i think its north of the train station abit. there loads of nice coffeshops to be found in haarlem if youve never been check it out. zanvoort was also brilliant, although i spent most of my time of the beach the town was nice. i didnt see many coffeeshops around but im sure theres some little gems hiddne down some allyways around town. trains are sweet, reliable etc, word of wanring, i remeber the train that runs; dam -- haarlem -- zanvoort get rediculusly overcrowded and on a hot day when very high could be alittle overwheling if you know what i mean. mate ive gone of on one, i cant evern remember what your question was.

Utrecht is a beautiful place to stay. The boat is an exceptional place to smoke