Welcome to New York!

When I visited New York City for the first time in April this year it was nothing short of amazing. I spent about 5 day exploring New York and thought I would share some of my favourite spots and some tips to save money when booking your travel and hotel accommodation.

Travel Expenses

Being situated in Vancouver, Canada we are only a 2 hour drive to Seattle’s airport. We noticed that flights were about $250 cheaper to fly out of the US than YVR. We flew with Air Alaska and left the car in one of Seattle’s Park N’ Fly parking lots – we were at Park N Jet Lot -2 Airport Parking. It was about $8.50 per day to leave your car there and you just have to get on a 15 minute shuttle to the airport. It was super safe and reliable and totally would recommend this option if it’s convenient for you.

How to get around in New York City

We flew into the JFK Airport and had to go to Newark Liberty International Airport when we were coming back home. Next time I would stick to flying from the same airport because it was a hassle to get on a train to the airport that’s located all the way out in New Jersey.

The best thing we did was get everywhere via the subway. You can get a 7 Day Metro Card for about $30 USD and use it as many times as you want. From the JFK Airport to the main subway station there is also a $5 USD charge. Travelling on the subway was very efficient and I would recommend that over any taxi’s or even Uber because there is just so much traffic that it ends up being faster to take the subway. We did take Uber once though (late at night) which wasn’t too bad.

Hotel Accommodation

Booking accommodation can always be challenging but I recently discovered a site called Hotwire where you can book 4 and 5 star hotels for like half the price! You select an area you want to stay and the site presents you with three possible options that you could get. Once you provide payment it reveals which hotel you are staying at – a little risky but I’ve used it three times now and all the stays have been worth it and legit.

With that being said, we stayed at the Warwick Hotel which was in Midtown Manhattan and about 4 blocks away from Central Park. The location was absolutely ideal because we were so close to major attractions: Times Square, Central Park and Rockefeller Centre and multiple subway stations. To give you an idea we paid about $220 per night for a 4.2 star hotel which normal costs about $800 per night.

Places to Eat

Going into this trip I had asked for a bunch of recommendations on food places so I listed some of my favourites below! Going to secret bars and speakeasies was probably my favourite thing to do and would do more of that next time I go!

Crif Dogs (there’s actually a secret bar called “Pleased Don’t Tell” hidden behind a secret door in this hotdog place

Joe’s Pizza – (Lower East Side, Times Square)

Black Tap Craft Burgers & Beer – get one of their milkshakes to share because they are insanely good and massive

Any 99 cent pizza place.

Momofuku at the Hudson’s Yards

Katz’s Delicatessen (Lower East Side) – best sandwiches hands down

Ivan Ramen – he was on mind of a chef and his restaurant is famous for Ramen

Cacio e Pepe – cheese wheel pasta

Juke Bar – There was trivia night going on

Dudley’s – has good brunch

EATaly near the Flatiron building

DŌ, Cookie Dough Confections

Any hotdog stand for a snack

Any shawarma stand

Other places we wanted to go to but didn’t have enough time to check out:

Tommy Bahama, Pio Pio, Boqueria, Pazza Notte, Benny Greengrass, Russ & Daughters, Brooklyn Brewery, Nom Wah – Oldest Tea Parlour in Chinatown for Dimsum

What to See

When you get to New York you experience FOMO because there is so much to do, you can’t possibly see it all. What worked for us was doing everything we wanted to do in a particular area. See below!

Mid-town

• Times Square
• Broadway Show
• Empire State Building
• Central Park
• Rockefeller Center
• Grand Central Station
• Chelsea Highline
• The Vessel/Hudson’s Yards
• Museum of Modern Art

Downtown NYC

• Wall Street / Financial District
• We can see Statue of Liberty by the water
• The Oculus, World Trade Center & 9/11 Memorial
• Century 21 Shopping Centre

Upper Manhattan

• Metropolitan Museum/ Met steps – The Met Fifth Avenue
• New York Public Library

Lower Manhattan

• Manhattan Bridge
• NYU Washington Square Park (Greenwich Village neighbourhood of Lower Manhattan)

Brooklyn

• Brooklyn Bridge
• DUMBO

SoHo Manhattan

• Shopping in SoHo

Getting tickets to a Broadway Show

Places to buy discounted Broadway tickets: https://www.tdf.org/nyc/7/TKTS-ticket-booths