Tag: New York

How to Spend a Day in Corona, Queens

On my recent trip to New York I wanted to explore more than just Manhattan. So I spent a day in Corona, Queens. I found great Mexican food and got to see bears and the most ostentatious bathroom ever.

One of the reasons I chose to spend ten days in New York rather than just a week, was because I wanted to give myself chance to get the feel for the city. I knew I wanted to do all the big touristy stuff, but I also wanted to have time to sit in coffee shops and wander round back streets and generally pretend I was a New Yorker. 

Okay, so I knew that ten days was never going to do much more than lift the hatch on New York, but at least the hatch would be lifted. 

Ten days also meant I had time to get out of Manhattan. Technically I was out of Manhattan every day as I deliberately chose to stay in Brooklyn, but I also wanted to spend a day exploring somewhere that wasn’t Manhattan. I looked at ways of getting out to the Hamptons or upstate to the Catskills or even to some of the towns along the Hudson, as they all seemed the sorts of places New Yorkers would go when they wanted to get out of town. But none of them really worked for a day trip without a car. 

Step forward Corona, Queens. Yeah, I hadn’t heard of it either. Corona, that is. Of course I’ve heard of Queens. 

Continue reading “How to Spend a Day in Corona, Queens”

25 Ways to Pretend to be a New Yorker

On my recent trip to New York I wanted to be more than a just a tourist. I wanted to get insider insights and feel like I could be a New Yorker. This is what I learnt.

The anthropologist in me is never content with just visiting a place and being a tourist. I like to feel I’m getting under the skin and finding out what it’s like to be a local there. This was even more important to me than usual when I made my first visit to New York in October. It’s a place I’ve dreamed about visiting for years decades. It’s a place I’ve seriously thought about spending a year in just so I can get to know it. It’s why it’s on my ‘60 things to do before I’m 60‘ list. 

Continue reading “25 Ways to Pretend to be a New Yorker”

9 Things You Need to Know Before Using the New York Subway

My first forays on the New York subway made my head spin. As a seasoned traveller I didn’t think this was possible! As the New York subway has quirks you won’t find anywhere else I’ve made it easy for you by letting you in on 9 things you need to know about using the New York subway so you can be prepared before your first trip.

The New York subway is great. It runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week and there are stations everywhere. And it’s cheap – only $2.75 for a ride that could take you from one end of Manhattan to the far reaches of Queens or Brooklyn. There are no zones to worry about, it’s a one-size fits all system.

So using the subway to get around New York should be dead easy right? And it is. Sort of. So long as you take account of its quirks and allow yourself a bit of time to get your head round it without beating yourself up when you find yourself in completely the wrong part of Manhattan. Continue reading “9 Things You Need to Know Before Using the New York Subway”

Sunset From the Top of the Empire State Building

Seeing New York at sunset from the top of the Empire State Building was one of the best things I did.

When I visited New York in October I wanted to dig down a bit and find out what the city is really like, not just follow the thousands of other tourists around checking boxes off a ‘must do in New York’ list. I think I did that pretty well and you can read more about it here. However, that didn’t mean I didn’t want to do any of the big touristy stuff – it’s popular for a reason right? – and topping my list was one of the biggest (literally and figuratively) things of all. I wanted – really wanted – to go to the top of the Empire State Building.

Continue reading “Sunset From the Top of the Empire State Building”

Nightmare at Madame Tussaud’s

I thought Halloween would be the perfect time to share my Nightmare at Madame Tussaud’s with you. I didn’t realise editing the video would be an even bigger nightmare!

I hadn’t intended going to Madame Tussaud’s whilst I was in New York, but I found myself in Times Square one evening with not much else to do and it was just there. Lit up in front of me. It was still open and I had a pass that included free entry so thought I might as well go and see what it had to offer.

Well it was a complete nightmare. So horrific I had to make a video so I could share the experience in full with you.  Continue reading “Nightmare at Madame Tussaud’s”

Thinking about New York

New York might be cheaper than I’d thought. I’ve found a flight and an apartment. Now I just have to find the money.

New York has been on my list of things to do since long before I ever had a list. I keep my eye on prices of flights, accommodation, etc. and always give a slow shake of my head thinking ‘no way’. The cost of flights during school holidays can be astronomical and I really wouldn’t want to pay that much for a week somewhere. I could go for longer, even the whole six weeks of the summer holidays, and that would make the cost seem a little more bearable if I divide the price by the number of weeks holiday I’d be getting (anything to make it seem more like a bargain), but then the cost of actually being in New York is so high I don’t see how I could afford to stay more than a week. So my New York wish has remained firmly on the wishlist.


Recently I saw someone mention on their blog that they’d booked really cheap flights to New York with United. Interested, I looked at United’s website and searched for flights outside of school holidays and way in the future. They weren’t anything like so cheap as the other blogger had mentioned, but they were cheaper than flights I’d looked at previously. And that was only one airline.


For some reason all the cheap flights went via Washington DC. Hm, seems a shame not to jump off and have a look round there too. And I hear all the museums are free. So I changed my search to see if I could maybe have a week in Washington DC and then a week in New York. Now I wanted to go to Washington and actually get off the plane, all the cheap flights went via New York. Huh? (That’s an American term – I’m practising).


Ok, so it was looking like if I do this I have to change at Washington in both directions but won’t actually get to see it. But if I’m thinking of 2 weeks maybe I could do 2 weeks in New York and have time to see more than just the main touristy stuff. Hell, (another American term) maybe I could spend a whole month there and have the time to get myself a regular coffee shop where I can sit, read, write, watch the world go by. And possibly drink some coffee. Though Amercian style buckets of watered down, lets add a whole cow’s worth of milk, coffee really annoy me. Maybe they’ll taste better when they’re in the right setting.


I was already liking this plan, but wasn’t sure if I’d be able to spend a month camping in Central Park unnoticed, so thought I should look for some paid accommodation. First stop, the YHA website. How much??? Jeez (yet, another Americanism – I’m starting to feel fluent), is this the Youth HOSTEL Association or the Youth HILTON Association? Next, I looked at private hostels. They were cheaper, but still way too expensive for a month.


Ok, so how do I really wanna (there I go again) do this? If I want to spend a month and try to get under the skin (I know, I know, it’s only a month, but it’s four times better than a week), then I should really get an apartment and pretend to be a real New Yorker.


So next up, was the AirBnB website. I’d heard of this, but never had reason to use it before. It seems to be people basically renting out rooms in their homes (or sometimes their whole homes) on a short-term basis. There are some luxurious places on there, but they didn’t grab me. And although they are probably a great price in the big scheme of things, they are way out of my price range. Then I found a wonderful apartment with three bedrooms that are rented out separately. The apartment is in Brooklyn which I like the sound of (‘I live in Brooklyn’ sounds so much more me than ‘I live in Manhattan’). The apartment is small but quirky and rather than the stylish designer pads I’d been looking at, this one reminded of Monica’s apartment in Friends. I know I could be at home there, I know I could. The price was ok and even a bit cheaper if staying for a month.


So I’ve found a flight (November seems to be cheapest) and I’ve found an apartment. Now I just need to find the money to pay for it. If prices have gone up by the time I get the money together, I won’t be going in November. But now I know I can do it, I will be going sometime. I’m already working on my itinerary.

New York hostels

Why are hostels in New York City being closed down?

As owning my own hostel is something I would like to do one day, I get regular updates on my facebook page from a hostel management site. This discussion in the forums has interested me not just because of my general hostel interest, but also because going to New York is also on my list and when I go I’ll be looking for cheap accommodation.

http://www.hostelmanagement.com/forum/f25/new-york-hostels-being-shut-down-4480.html

It seems that lots of hostels have recently been raided and shut down because of changes in a local law about the number of transient people allowed to stay at any one time in an apartment building. This could be due to pressure from the big hotels wanting everyone to stay with them, so they’re trying to squeeze the small guys out of business. If this is the case, then I don’t see how they think it will work. People with a budget of $20 a night are not suddenly going to be able to stump up $200 a night. Instead they’ll just stay away. When these hostels were suddenly shut down travellers staying in them found themselves having to sleep rough. So if the law and the raids are because hostels are deemed ‘unsafe’, then how can sleeping rough in New York City be seen as a safer option? It all seems very short-sighted and bullyboyish to me. If they went after the truly unsafe hostels then fair enough, but that really doesn’t seem to have been the case.

My sympathies go out to the travellers and tourists who have found themselves homeless and the hostel owners and employees who have found themselves businessless and jobless.

The YHA seems to be unaffected by this. Maybe they have dedicated buildings for their hostels and so are exempt? Or is it because they’re a bigger business they don’t get trampled on so easily?