Planning on taking a weekend trip to New York City? I’m here to share all my travel tips that will make your trip 10x more fun! I know weekend trips can feel kind of rushed, but here, I have laid out a time-efficient way to see & do all the fun things while also not spending too much money!

Biggest travel tip: I will always say it matters so much who you travel with. It took me a few trips with different people to really figure out how I love to travel (not sleeping, seeing literally everything possible, and saying yes to everything no matter how tired I am); but once you decide what’s important to you in traveling, find people who value the same things and go see the world together! It makes it so much more fun if everyone is on the same page! 

Okay, back to NYC.. I LOVE itineraries (as we know), but I decided not to plan too much for this trip and just see what happened. Exploring (aka getting super lost a lot) and being in awe of the never-ending busyness around me and laughing with my best friends was so freeing. 

So instead of sharing a detailed itinerary, as is custom around here, I’m going to explain the different areas of New York and some of my favorite things in those areas! When planning this trip, I started from scratch and knew nothing about NYC, so as I was researching, I really was just looking for the most time-efficient ways to hit all the different areas in the city. 

We stayed in Times Square at the M Social Hotel. I booked through booking.com, which was cheaper than M Social’s website! Times Square is very interesting, to say the least. Excellent location if you’re looking to be in the middle of the city and close enough to walk to most things! If I were to go back, I would stay in Brooklyn because it feels much more authentic and less touristy. Here is a cute Brooklyn Airbnb and my favorite late-night spot there! 

Transportation

• Don’t rent a car. Parking is tough and traffic is crazy. 
• Take the Subway – also known as the train – it is so fun! Here is the map. This was difficult to navigate at first, but we found a local who explained it to us and all was well after that! We had quite the adventure one night and encountered a giant rat in the subway.. After that, we took Ubers if we had evening trips we needed to make, since the rats seem to love the train at night too..

Statue of Liberty, Chinatown, Little Italy, and SoHo: 

These are all in the same area & you could seem them all in one day!

• Statue of Liberty – Take the Staten Island Ferry (it’s free!) 
• Walk down Wall Street on your way to go see the One World Trade Center – also free!
• Lunch in Chinatown – my personal fave! We just wandered around and looked at our food options (& checked health ratings on windows.. “A” rating is what you’re looking for). We decided on a dessert place that was full of locals (I’m eating a bao bun here, which isn’t dessert) and then found a place that had exceptional dumplings and sesame chicken. We stopped by the park and listened to three elderly people playing traditional music from their country. It almost brought us to tears, just seeing how proud these people were of what their country was and them loving their culture so much they work to keep it alive. 
• Walk around in SoHo.. Lots of great shopping!
• Dinner in Little Italy. We found a cute little place after walking around for a bit. We were being picky.. but gosh was it worth the wait! So authentic and so yummy! After eating, we got 2 for $5 cannolis from a vendor on the street corner!

Hudson Yards

• Start your morning at Starbucks Reserve. 
• Go for a walk on the Highline and marvel at the impressive architecture.
• Grab lunch at Jack’s Wife Freida, then  gelato at the Chelsea Market. Walk around and shop for a little while in the repurposed mill. 
• Explore Little Island.
• GO TO THE EDGE!!! At sunset!!! It’s an incredible view of the city. It takes about 30 extra minutes to get up there than the time you book your ticket for, so make sure to select your time for a little before sunset actually happens.
• Eat dinner at Little Spain. The rabbit paella was to. die. for. 

Other fun activities:

• Go to a Yankees or Nets game
• Bike around Central Park. We used Viator. It takes about 3 hours if you stop and enjoy everything! The carousel ride is a fun detour (and cute for photos)! The Nordstrom flagship store is nearby, as well, if you want to stop in and shop for a little while after biking. 
• Shop on 5th Avenue. Saks is the most impressive store I have ever seen.. 10 stories worth of beautiful clothes! 
• Explore pretty hotels! The Plaza Hotel is my fave!
• For my museum lovers: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, and the Museum of Natural History are a few options. You can buy tickets for these upon arrival at the museum.
• Eat at Spumoni Gardens (my chef friend recommends the sicilian pizza) and the ice cream next door afterwards for a real NYC experience. 
• Catch a Broadway show – typical NYC thing duh!!! Tickets can be up to 50% off if you go buy them from the box office day-of, just based on what shows still have seats available. 

Some other foods we tried:

• Bagels! Bacon egg and cheese! SO GOOD.  
• A New York hot dog. $4. Not great. Don’t do it just for the experience. Not worth it. 
• Pizza from a local shop called Carve. 100/10. $5. Great redemption after the low quality hot dog. 

A lot of people say that New York City is losing its magic.. while I can see how that could be true, I also saw there were fascinating things around every corner. I want to experience more of the city and, most of all, its people. I think people are really where the magic lies, and the city is overflowing with people, consequently overflowing with magic.  Will I ever live in NYC? Most likely not. But it is a mesmerizing place to visit. I can’t wait to go back on more little weekend trips and uncover more of the stories and beauty this city has to offer!

Have any other incredible NYC recommendations? Share them in the comments! I would love to try them out on my next trip!! Thanks for being here! 😀 

xoxo, Sam ;))