Anyone can find something interesting for themselves in New York, but there are some things that everyone should see. If you’ve never been to the city and you’re only coming for a few days, then it’s best to prepare ahead of time or you might find out after your trip that you missed some cool stuff. My friend Helen was well prepared and discovered many of the nuances I wanted to share today as well as how to save spend when traveling in new york.
New York is an expensive city, with an average cost of $20-$30 to visit each attraction. For example, a trip to the Statue of Liberty costs $17, climbing Rockefeller Center costs $27, and viewing statues at Madame Tussauds costs $39. For visitors, you can save money by purchasing a New York Pass or CityPass subscription. Both can be purchased online.
The New York Pass
This pass includes more than 80 attractions for a limited time. Today’s price (per adult).
Get access to more than 115 top New York attractions with one digital pass.
Choose a pass for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, or 10 consecutive days to enjoy all of these benefits.
Visit the official website for details https://newyorkpass.com/
The New York City Pass is available on different days and gives you free access to 80+ popular landmarks, fine art museums, zoos, theme parks, and more. Choose the number of days you want (1, 2, 3, 5, 7, or 10 days), download the pass to your mobile app, and enter with the pass QR code at the entrance of the attraction.
City Pass
It only includes 5 attractions, but is valid for 9 days and costs $129. We decided to purchase it and if we wanted to see something that wasn’t included, we just paid separately.
Expiration Note: The Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Chicago, Houston, New York City, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa Bay, and Toronto City Pass is valid for 9 consecutive days, including the first day of use.
Visit the official website for details https://www.citypass.com/
You can purchase a subscription on the official website. Once purchased, you will need to print out the purchase information or use the APP mobile QR code to gain entry and then travel to any place you can subscribe to visit. These tickets will be checked and selected at the time of visiting each attraction. Do not pull them from there under any circumstances or they will be invalidated.
For more detailed information on each location.
A. Skyscraper Empire State Building (Empire State Building)
Remember the King Kong movie? This is the skyscraper he climbed. It offers a breathtaking view of lower Manhattan and its skyscrapers. With CityPass, you can climb it twice in one day – in the afternoon and after 22:00. The view is beautiful at night, but it’s also great during the day. Since we didn’t want to go here at night, we took the cunning move – we got here before sunset and managed to see the city in both daylight and darkness.
By the way, if you plan to shoot something at night with a tripod, forget about it. Tripods are taken at the entrance and given at the exit.
B. American Museum of Natural History (American Museum of Natural History)
The huge museum is located on the northwest side of Central Park. Dedicated to the history of nature, earth, and space. Admission includes entry to the planetarium. If you run very, very fast, you can “see” the museum in half a day, but it’s best not to go there in that case. We barely met the museum hours in order to see everything we liked at a leisurely pace.
C. Metropolitan Museum of Art
A very large art museum, similar to the Tretyakov Gallery or the Hermitage. Besides the pictures, there are many other interesting things to see. It is said to be one of the largest museums in the world. You can find anything from paintings to entire squares. I recommend setting aside a full day. Or you can find out in advance where the halls you are interested in are and then just check them out. At the entrance, you can make a plan and everything is painted there.
About the price. Officially, it is equal to $ 25.
D. Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York
Contemporary art shines in all its glory. Fascinating installations, paintings in empty frame form, etc. Panopticon, in a word.
In some places, there are paintings by Chagall, Malevich (yes, he not only created black squares), Warhol, and other Van Goghs. Even a painting by Dali, which I sympathize with. There are some things I like, but in general, I don’t like this one. In my opinion, for an artist who really has something to say, there are about a dozen people who would be better off not appearing on Instagram.
You can spend half a day in a museum, no more.
E. Rockefeller Center Skyscraper & Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Choose from the Rockefeller Center Skyscraper (Top of the Rock) or the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
We chose a skyscraper and we had more than enough museums. In the morning we climbed up to Rockefeller Center, from where we had a wonderful panoramic view of Manhattan: “downtown” on the one hand, and Central Park on the other. There are several floors upstairs to visit, several of which are open.
Tripods, such as those on the Empire State Building, are not taken away, but they are not allowed to be used.
F. Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island or Circle Line Cruise (by boat tour)
It is a crime to visit New York for the first time and not see the Statue of Liberty. We could not do that and chose the first option. It includes a visit to the island where the statue itself is located and Ellis Island, where there used to be immigrants from the old world.
With a ticket, you can take a ferry to the Statue of Liberty, walk there until you get bored, then climb up to the pedestal where the same Statue of Liberty is located, and then take any ferry to Ellis Island. There is a museum on Ellis dedicated to the era of active immigration, from which America was born. Ironically – now the states are most afraid of immigrants.
What Else Do You Like
In addition to the highlights, there are some places worth visiting for general development. Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn itself, Wall Street, Central Park, Manhattan, Times Square, the Iron Horse, and various Catholic churches. If time permits, you can ride your bike to Brighton Beach and enjoy our fellow citizens of yesteryear. By the way, there is a very nice promenade and a small beach. Learn all about these places and other trivia in our photo blog. There will be more time – we will definitely ride in Jersey, see southern Brooklyn, and walk around Harlem during the day (it’s scary there at night). Wouldn’t recommend it because I’ve never been.
New York Accommodation (Hotels, Airbnb)
The sights are great, but you also need to stay somewhere. New York has more than enough hotels and other housing. Most of them are quite expensive and you can find something that fits your budget (search and compare options from Booking, Agoda, etc.)
Booking.com is a large and well-known booking system.
HotelsCombined (aka Roomguru) is another major hotel search engine.
A. Airbnb accommodations in New York
Hotels are not the only option, personally, in New York, the Airbnb site really saved us from “ruin”. It was there that we found our cozy little room in Manhattan for $50.
For those who are not familiar with the Airbnb service, it is a resource for hosts to rent homes (rooms, apartments, houses) directly, with Airbnb acting as a guarantor of the transaction and its security. We have found excellent accommodations on this site many times in terms of price and quality and have always been satisfied.
