The Cheap Students New York City Trip Recap

Restaurants

A New York City trip recap wouldn’t be complete without discussing the food. It was unfortunate that the first night we arrived at about 9pm and it was pouring rain, but we still ended up finding a great restaurant located within walking distance of our hotel, Nizza. The restaurant was great given we basically stumbled in there to get away from the rain and didn’t look up reviews before hand. Another restaurant we tried out was 5 Napkin Burger which reminded me a bit of The Works in Canada but fancier and of course in NYC. It was a good restaurant but service was a bit slow. Overall, my favourite place was Pure Thai Cookhouse which was where we ate the last night. I’m a fan of trying out a variety of different restaurants and this was the closest thing to authentic Thai I’ve ever had. The restaurant was quaint and the service was awesome. We purchase 4 dishes and split them all, and realized how spicy Thai food really is. Loved this place and would definitely recommend it.

What I would do next time – Head to Brooklyn for a famous NYC slice of Pizza.

Getting Around

First of all, I want to thank everyone who commented on my last blog post-transportation is one of the biggest factors in NYC. If you don’t think ahead things can be costly, and they definitely had some great tips. I realized this when I got to NYC that you should NEVER drive there, it’s nuts, it’s crazier than Toronto and people are really aggressive. Take a cab, walk the city or take the subway. I have to say, the city is extremely easy to navigate, it’s a grid and the streets and avenues go highest to lowest..it’s a dream. I also want to note that in my last post I mentioned driving, we did drive but parked our vehicle in New Jersey at a friends place and never went near the city in the car (saving us some seriously inconvenient city parking issues). The subway system was also fairly easy to figure out and was inexpensive-it makes me a little jealous because of how lame Toronto’s system is. We also took NJ Transit back out to Jersey to grab our car and it was also super easy to use.

Daisy @ Prairie Eco Thrifter “The subway system is great there and easy to use. You can get anywhere on it”

Latisha Styles from Young Finances “If you rent a car, watch where you park. We got a $95 dollar ticket for parking on the street in the wrong location!”

What I Would Do Next Time – Fly, holy crap driving takes forever. It was budget friendly for the 4 of us to drive but those are 16 hours + of my life I won’t be getting back. Gas was cheap though..

Where to Stay

As mentioned in my last post one of the most important things is where you stay, and this was something I knew should be included in my New York City trip recap. We stayed in Hell’s Kitchen at the Holiday Inn Express and booked through Hotwire. The hotel had free breakfast and was brand new, a little cramped but what do you expect..it’s NYC. Also it had this awesome patio in the front where we always chilled out after a long day of walking, might have been my favourite part of the hotel. Overall found the hotel experience to be great but if you have a smaller budget Andrew from Living Rich Cheaply suggests, “that you can find better prices if you’re willing to be a little farther away (like New Jersey or Queens).” Something to definitely think about if I ever go again (probably soon!) without my fam.

What To See

There is a massive list of things that we set out to do before we went to NYC and they all would have been awesome to see but it just wasn’t doable. Some of the really great things to check out are (definitely a limited list);

Empire State Building – A view from below, taken with my wonderful iPhone 3GS.

Empire State building-great views, but there is a massive line. Everyone was there when we went of course (around 9:30am) and then there wasn’t a line by the time we got down.

9/11 Memorial-Honestly just a really moving place, and then you can also check out the Freedom Tower being developed nearby which is also a beautiful building

Century 21/Macy’s/5th Ave.-You’ve never see stores this big or beautiful, overwhelming but awesome. If you’re willing to put in a good day at one of these stores, especially Century 21, you will find some great deals.

Times Square-Duh…but in all seriousness, we went during the day and I wish I had of gone back at night. It’s just this overwhelming place that’s in all those cool action movies and stuff… Definitely a must.

Central Park-After walking around the busy streets of NYC for 2 days it was amazing to walk into a park within a city. Really beautiful, too bad we were dead tired or I would have stayed there forever.

Central Park – A little bit of city and park.

China Town-You’ve got to go, it’s essentially a market where you can buy everything from purses, wallets, watches, perfumes. You can even experience people coming up to you trying to sell you some seriously undercover fake designer stuff. I didn’t try and I’m pretty sure it’s not legal but if you want to, test your luck. Also..did my very first negotiation in a market, got the guy down $15, must say I was pretty proud.

What I Would Do Next Time-Times Square and the Empire State Building at Night. And also find all the places they shot Gossip Girl, I might be a bit of a fan. Also I never went to any bars, definitely a must for next time. Also, check out a Broadway show and go to a Yankee’s game.

Miscellaneous

Keep your eye out for stars, famous people, athletes. My only celeb sighting was actually a player from the Brooklyn Net’s and was part of a mob chasing after someone near Saks 5th Ave. and the Rockefeller Centre (no idea who it was though). Be creative in your meal choices and walk the city. We walked 8 hours a day-burned a crap ton of calories and really got to experience the whole city instead of just being underground or shooting by in a taxi.

Overall I loved NYC and will definitely be going back again. Hopefully this little New York City trip recap provides a bit of a guide for those wanting to go to the city.

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Travelling to New York City

Drive if you can, or bus, or train

We considered flying for a split second and then realized how much the costs will pile up if booking for a family of 4. All of us will be splitting the drive so the 8+ hour drive won’t be too bad and it’s kind of a roadtrip right?

Checking around for hotel deals

I actually wasn’t heavily involved in hotel bookings like I usually am, but my mom was on top of this. On the daily, or so it felt, we were checking out different hotel deals and booking ones (that we were able to cancel!). In the end we settled on a hotel that is in Hell’s Kitchen which is walking distance from Central Park but not at Central Park area hotel prices.

One of the great websites that I always use is Hotwire.com which we used to book our hotel this time around. There are a bunch of other great ones out there including Trivago, Travelzoo (lot’s of great deals, especially their Top 20 deals) and websites like Booking.com. I always find it’s really important to shop around, and at times find a slightly less “central” location and save some money that way.

Picking a hotel with free breakfast

For many family trips that we’ve gone on, we have stuck with chains that we’ve loved including Hampton Inn. They are great hotels and always have free breakfast which is a bonus and can help save you some money. Think about the savings you’ll get every day though, especially when you’re in a pricier city like NYC-all the money adds up. Obviously if there’s a huge disparity in price between a hotel with breakfast and the one’s without, do without the breakfast.

Planning Ahead

Over the last few weeks I’ve been doing my research and figuring out some great places to hit up during our time there. I’m never one to create a detailed itinerary (that’s a bit much for me), but coming up with some places of interest makes things a bit easier when you get there. I also want to do a bit of shopping (maybe a lot…) so I’ve set aside some money to spend and budgeted that out as well as figured out the most important things I need. I’m hoping by doing that I won’t go crazy and spend all my money at Century 21 or Macy’s. We will see how that goes…

Throughout the rest of the trip I’ll be posting photo’s and little updates since this is the first time I’ll be really travelling since I’ve started this blog. Really excited!

Anyone have any great tips for travelling in New York City?

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