CCS 2026 The Hague: Travel Guide and Where to Stay

CCS 2026 runs from 15 to 19 November at The World Forum in The Hague. The ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security is one of the four flagship security venues, CORE A*, and it accepted 14.5% of submissions at its last edition.

If you submitted, you already know: notifications went out on 17 July. Which means the people who got in have had a fortnight to think about it, and the rooms nearest the venue are going now.

The one thing to understand about The Hague. The city has two centres and they are not close together. The World Forum sits in the International Zone in the north-west, a quiet district of parkland, embassies and institutions, with the Peace Palace and the International Court of Justice a fifteen minute walk away. The historic centre, with the Binnenhof, the Mauritshuis and everywhere you would actually want to eat, is a half hour walk or about ten minutes by tram.

Neither is wrong. But pick deliberately, because the difference is whether you walk to your first session or catch a tram to it.

Getting in

Almost nobody flies to The Hague. Amsterdam Schiphol (AMS) is the airport, 60 km north, and it is one of the best-connected hubs in Europe. Intercity trains run from directly beneath the terminal to Den Haag Centraal in about 50 minutes, or to Den Haag HS in about 35. Buy at the machine or use a contactless card straight through the gates.

Rotterdam The Hague Airport (RTM) is closer at 15 km but has limited European service and no rail link, so it is rarely the better option.

From within Europe the train is often easiest: Amsterdam is 50 minutes away, Rotterdam 25, and Brussels and Paris are direct via Rotterdam on Eurostar.

Once you are there, the HTM tram network is the thing to use. Trams 1, 17 and others connect Centraal, the centre, the International Zone and Scheveningen. Buy with a contactless bank card. The city is flat and cycling is genuinely practical if you would rather.

Note that Den Haag Centraal is 3 km from the World Forum, so arriving by train still means a tram or a long walk.

Where to stay

Distances below are from The World Forum.

At the venue. Novotel Den Haag World Forum is 56 metres away, which is to say the hotel is effectively part of the same complex. For a five-day conference with evening sessions that is worth real money, and it is the room block that disappears first. The Hague Marriott Hotel is six minutes on foot along Johan de Wittlaan, four stars, with the higher floors looking over the city toward the sea.

Halfway. Court Garden Hotel is a mid-range eco-certified three-star about sixteen minutes from the venue and a couple of hundred metres from the Peace Palace, with a tram stop outside that runs straight to Centraal. It is the sensible compromise if the venue hotels are gone or over budget.

In the centre. Hilton The Hague is on Zeestraat in the embassy quarter, five stars, next door to the Panorama Mesdag and walkable to the Mauritshuis. It is about 23 minutes from the venue on foot, so plan on the tram. Will & Tate City Stay is a small budget option nearer the middle of town.

Budget. Stayokay Hostel Den Haag is by Centraal station with dorms and private rooms, well rated and the cheapest way to do this trip. It is the furthest from the venue at about 3.7 km, so it is a tram commute every morning.

The full list is on the The Hague city page. If you are weighing the official block against booking yourself, we went through that trade-off here.

November in The Hague

Cold, grey and wet, and there is no use pretending otherwise. Expect 5 to 9C, short days, and wind coming off the North Sea that makes it feel colder than the number. Bring a proper coat and something waterproof.

The upside is that this is the cheapest and quietest time of year in a city that fills up in summer, and the museums are empty. The Dutch deal with the weather by going indoors and making it pleasant, which is a reasonable model for a conference week.

Between sessions

The Mauritshuis is the one to make time for. It holds Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring and Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp in a 17th-century mansion small enough to see properly in two hours. It is one of the best small museums in Europe and it is a tram ride from the venue.

The Peace Palace is a fifteen minute walk from the World Forum and seat of the International Court of Justice. You cannot generally go in without a tour, but the building and grounds are worth the detour, and there is a certain symmetry to attending a conference on security and trust next door to the world court.

Scheveningen is the surprise. The North Sea beach and its pier are 1.7 km from the venue, which makes them closer than the historic centre is. In November it is bracing rather than pleasant, but a walk on an empty winter beach between sessions is a better reset than another coffee.

The Binnenhof, the working Dutch parliament, sits on a medieval courtyard by the Hofvijver pond in the centre. And if you have a spare day either side, Delft is 15 minutes away and Rotterdam 25, the first for the old town and the Vermeer connection, the second for some of the most aggressive modern architecture in Europe.

If you are presenting

CCS is a big conference and the programme is dense. A few practical notes.

The acceptance rate was 14.5%, so the room will be full of people who also got through that, which is worth remembering when nerves hit. We wrote about what those numbers actually mean, and why 14.5% at CCS is not directly comparable to 24% at CRYPTO, in our acceptance-rate analysis.

If you are earlier in a PhD and reading this because CCS is on your target list rather than because you got in, our guide to where to publish in cybersecurity covers the venues between here and nowhere, several of which have deadlines open right now.

Full dates, deadlines and venue details are on the CCS conference page, and every security conference we track is on the cybersecurity tag page.