Being a recent university graduate at 22 who has a desire to see the world, you can imagine my bank account does not support this. But will that stop me? Somewhat, but not completely.
My boyfriend and I decided a year prior to this trip that New York would be our first couple vacation together. Cute right? For him it was his love for the Yankees and for me the love of food trucks (duh), and our common interest of Seinfeld and Friends. We both had the same desires as for what we wanted to do and see.. and the same dilemma; money.
This week's post is about how we spent a whooping 7 days in New York City for under 1300$ CAN!
Also, this is part 1 of the NYC series. Part 2 of this series will be all the best (cheap-er) food in NYC.
The flow of this post will be:
NY Tips
Itinerary
Conclusion
TIPS & TRICKS
DO. YOUR. RESEARCH. We started planning this trip way ahead of time. We broke up the planning into parts so it stayed fun and manageable and we googled everything and anything to find out what we wanted to do most long before departure day; what was budget friendly, best places to go or not go & so on. This was a huge part in navigating through our trip efficiently and effectively. Having your do's & don'ts figured out before your trip begins saves you money during the trip, and more importantly, minimizes the time wasted once you're there.
PLAN AN ITINERARY. This is obviously based around the extensive research you did (or should have done) ahead of time. As lame as that sounds it's pertinent to making the most of your time, especially in New York. It's as chaotic as you'd expect, and I could not imagine doing this trip without at least having a loose itinerary. We divided our itinerary day by day, city by city, morning to night. See the Itinerary section for all details. Although an itinerary is important, don't be set in stone on everything. Things always pop up out of nowhere, inevitably changing your plans. Have a back up!
METROCARD is your best friend. If you plan on taking city transportation anywhere, multiple times a day (buses or subway), you need a Metro Card. We purchased a 7 day unlimited ride pass for 33$ US. The fair for each ride is 2.75$ US, so this investment paid itself off for us by about the second day. We got ours right after our flight landed at the LaGuardia airport. This pass is important if you're exploring all of New York.
B.Y.O.S(nacks). Eating three meals a day, for 7 days, in NY can really add up if you don't do it properly. You can find great eats for cheap in NY, that's no problem. But bring your own snacks to save money! We brought a box of Cliff bars in our suitcase (we only brought one suitcase with us on the trip. Crazy). Fruit stands in NY are your best friend. Cheap fruit, but good fruit, gives you easy affordable snacks. Breakfast is easy to do for 5$ or less if you're happy with a coffee and a bagel with flavored cream cheese, which is the way to go, or a pastry. Lunch is also easy with all the 1$ pizza slices you can eat and food trucks on every corner. I'd suggest to pick your "splurge meals" wisely. We came to New York to eat our way through the popular and touristy foods. Again, we researched all the best niche places to eat! Stay tuned for that post.
AIRBNB your stay. Hotels are WAY overpriced. We were in our apartment to strictly sleep & shower. We were out by 9am and back by 11pm almost every day. We stayed in Manhattan, in West Harlem in a shared Airbnb with the host, but had a huge room, access to the kitchen, bathrooms & more. This gives you the real life as a New Yorker experience. Our host was amazing, and gave us everything we needed and more. It was 65$ CAN a night compared to a standard 200$ US that you would pay at a hotel.
BOOK IN ADVANCE. We had booked our flights in early June for an end of August trip. Don't be picky with airlines either, especially with a short flight. We flew with Spirit for cheap and had no issues. The Airbnb was also booked in June. Airbnb is awesome because you don't pay the full price all at once, it was in two installments. This helps to not dish out everything at once and gives you the opportunity to reevaluate costs multiple times. As for booking restaurants, we never had any difficulty getting in anywhere. We didn't do too many paid "attractions", however booking in advance is probably wise and I would suggest getting a City Pass for those days.
ITINERARY
Like I said, our trip was 7 days: August 24th to 31st, Saturday to Saturday. Originally the plan was to go in December but let me tell you... that is NOT the way you want to go to save money. We do want to go back during December in the future now that we know what the New York experience is like. And when our bank accounts can support that.
Like mentioned above, we broke our itinerary into different sections of New York and tried to stay in the same area for most of the day.
SATURDAY- Arrival & Midtown Manhattan/Chelsea
Our flights were early (6am) to make the most out of our first day. The process from getting to LaGuardia to our Aribnb was about an hour, but easy. By the time we made it to our place it was 10am, which gave us an entire first day. The big three of the day was the Chelsea Market, the High Line, and our niche food of the day, Artichoke Basille's! If you go here and don't get the artichoke pizza, you're missing out. Remember, FREE is KEY. Just walking around the Chelsea area is an amazing and authentic New York experience by itself. The High Line is a 1.45 mile long stretch of elevated walkways to take throughout the Chelsea area, offering impressive views of architecturally gorgeous buildings and gardens with lots to see, day and night. It is such a cute, must see area and a great place to start the trip.
SUNDAY- Central Park
You read in most places that you can't do Central Park in one day... we did. Yes, it is huge, but we're young and 22 thousands steps (and over 20 km) later, we covered the whole area. Central Park is essentially free (key). The restaurants on the inside are very overpriced, so we brought our own snacks, bagels, and coffees to the park for a cheap picnic lunch with great views. This part is all just exploring, sight seeing and people watching. You can find anything in Central Park; live music performances, volleyball courts, art shows, street performers, but mostly great and iconic views. More than anything, as I'm sure a true New Yorker could attest to, it's a great way to escape from the city with the trees blocking out the noise from the loud streets of New York while the buildings peeked out over top, providing a surreal experience and view. We ended this day with pizza at Angelo's Coal Oven Pizzeria. The pizza was good but the service was not, and it was pricey. We left with full tummy's but a bad taste in our mouths after the service. I'd recommend going somewhere else, but keep in mind, this area is not cheap! So keep that into consideration.
MONDAY- SoHo & Chinatown
This was a LONG day for us. We woke up early to get in line at Dominique Ansel's Bakery to wait for it to open. This is the home of the Cronut (croissant donut). Google this place and the hype around it, it is definitely worth it. You can read more about it in my future NYC Foods post to come. Alec is a huge fan of the Kith clothing brand, so over to SoHo we went to get in another line for a Monday Program drop. This was our shopping day! We spent hours, and dollars, shopping around in SoHo's number of stores. Again, exploring each part of these cities is entertaining enough. Our top stops were Aritzia, Nike, Flight Club, Kith (3 times), Stadium Goods and Supreme. We initially wanted to eat at Pietro Nolita, an all pink-themed diner, but it was a bit pricey. So a picture sufficed and off to Shake Shack we went! This is not a cheap area food wise so this is definitely a splurge on food day. We changed scenery's at the end of the night and headed to Chinatown. If you love Chinese food, this is a must, and super cheap. Wandering around the authentic markets, storefronts and fruit stands is fun enough in itself. A tip: fruit stands are everywhere in NYC, and cheap! Grab bananas, oranges, apples, whatever floats your boat for a good snack or lunch to save money. This is another long walking day... learn from my mistake and shoot for comfort & not fashion with your footwear.
TUESDAY- Brooklyn, Coney Island, Williamsburg
My favorite day. Another early morning wake up call for walking across the Brooklyn Bridge into Dumbo. The bridge was another amazing free interactive touristy sight seeing adventure. You get to see the Manhattan skyline as well as Brooklyn's, and walk across the entire thing for amazing picture opportunities. Here I got 2$ mango slices with lemon juice and Tajin.. amazing. We walked across into Dumbo, which is another cute neighborhood worth it to check out. If you're a fan of the Barstool President's Pizza reviews, NYC is the place to try it yourself. Alec located Ignazios Pizzeria Restaurant for his own review: 8.7/10. We hopped on the subway to take us to Coney Island in the Brooklyn area for a nice Coney Dog. We kept the "free" theme here by not playing any carnival games or going on any rides, just a simple Coney Dog (this one was for you mom). Nathan's is the only way to go for a classic Coney Dog! This is more of a family place. Glad we went but I would not say it is a must do for a couple. Williamsburg was the next stop and the best way to end the night. This area is a hipster's dream. I'd highly recommend this hidden gem! We ate at Vanessa's Dumpling House, which I'd also say is a must hit if you are in Williamsburg. After some delicious dumplings, we stopped off at the cutest bakery, Martha's Country Bakery, for a slice of cheesecake and a massive black and white cookie. The options here are endless and all make your mouth water. Again, the cutest spot.
WEDNESDAY- Queens, Mexican-town & Mets Game
This day was a bit of a flop. We decided to give Queens a shot after hearing mixed reviews. Consensus: do not go. We went with the hopes to see the Wellington Court Mural Project, which ended up not being as cool as we had hoped. Street art is interesting to see, but there was no more than 10 minutes of murals to walk through and one wrong turn and you're in a neighborhood that you do not want to be in. After this let down, on a rainy day, what sounds better than a bagel & coffee in a New York coffee shop. We sat in a coffee house (I forget the name, sorry!) and waited around for 4pm to head to Iconyc Brewing Company in Queens. If you're a craft beer head junky like us, this is a nice stop. Small brewery with great beer selections. Dinner this day in Corona was of course in Mexican Town for some authentic Mexican, my favorite. The restaurant was Tulcingo, very authentic, delicious, cheap and stuffed us. We used Yelp heavily on this trip, which led us to this place. With tummy's full of beer and tacos, we went to watch the Mets play at Citi Field. You can get cheap seats and this is actually something we find more interest in, unlike climbing to the top of every crowded building in NYC.
THURSDAY- Midtown Manhattan, Times Square
This was our biggest "tourist" day by far. All the major sight seeing in Midtown Manhattan was done: Rockefeller, Flatiron, Empire State Building, Grand Central Station, Madison Square Garden.. you name it, we saw it. This is all personal preference! See what you want to see, for free, or climb to the top for a bit of a hefty fee and a long wait in line. Shopping (or window shopping) on 5th Ave took up a big part of the day. Going to Apple and Nike for Alec and Gucci and Louis Vuitton for me. An interesting, non-traditional stop for us was the Museum of Sex (sorry mom & dad). For a couple's trip, this was a must see for us and I would definitely recommend. The exhibit was fun, with interactive parts, a fun gift shop and interesting reads all throughout.. you learn more than you thought you could or needed to. Before hitting the Square, a rooftop bar was calling our names. The options are endless. We hit a little Irish pub for a Guinness and great views of the city. Times Square from sunset to night time is the perfect time to go. Times Square speaks for itself, so I don't need to say much. We tried multiple 1$ pizza slices on our way home, but ultimately ended up getting another slice from Artichoke Basille's at night and taking it up to the High Line. A romantic night time date spot. From there we decided to take another walk along the High Line and let me say, the view of the lights below in Chelsea, mixed with the architecture and gardens was simply breathtaking.
(swipe through)
FRIDAY- Chelsea, Yankee Game
This was our last full day. We had done essentially all we had planned and only had the Yankee game at night to go to. This is Alec's favorite team, so it was a huge deal to go early and experience everything. Before the game however, we had no real plans. Originally, we had thought Central Park would be spread into two days, and this day would consist of exploring the bottom half. We were obviously wrong about this, so we decided to revisit our favorite area, Chelsea. We stopped at the Starbucks Reserve Roastery. If you love coffee, and Starbucks at that, this is a cool little stop to visit. I won't go into too much detail about this, google it! Next stop was a little niche treat, cookie dough. DŌ is the place you go to calm your sweet tooth needs. Located near New York University and Washington Square, also cool to see, you pick flavored cookie dough like you would in a traditional ice cream shop. Next stop is Yankee Stadium. We went on Gleyber Torres Bobble-head Night, so you can imagine how busy it was and how early you had to be there. For any sport fans I would suggest catching a game while you're there if you can, but go early so you can get the full experiene of the diamond. This experience was all for Alec, although cool to see nonetheless. We ended our night after the game with street tacos and a 6-pack of corona's on our fire escape to reminisce over our trip.
Slide through!
SATURDAY- Harlem, Travel
Our flight left around 4pm, so we only had the morning to enjoy. We stayed in the area our Airbnb was in, West Harlem, then walked our way down to our favorite bagel place, Broadway Bagels for breakfast. We took coffee's and bagels down to the side of central park and hungout there until we had to make the commute back to the station. It's important to note the travel time you need. Leave earlier than you need to in order to account for travel time and screw ups (which we had).
CONCLUSION
Overall, this trip was nothing short of amazing. For the first trip either of us have planned on our own, we frickin killed it! We learned a lot, and saw a lot. Would we do some things differently? Yes, but not much! We did everything we wanted to and ended up coming home with money we had planned to spend. I have too many pictures to post, so these are just some.
Like mentioned, I will be doing another post dedicated to the best food places we went to. Some mentioned already and some not! We were huge Yelper's throughout this trip to find our spots.
Dear New York, we loved you & we will be back during Christmas time with money in our pockets to get us to the top of every building!
-LOZ
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