New York (1) - all about accommodation and transport

This summer I went to New York. Of course I've done my research, watched YouTube vlogs for hours, read dozens of articles online, but nothing really prepares you for this experience. If you want to put NYC on your travel bucket list, you need to set some realistic expectations. It's special for the view of the skyscrapers, the vibe of Central Park, the color and light show of Times Square, the Statue of Liberty, the spectacular 4th of July fireworks, the Broadway shows, the Tesla taxis, the beauty of the buildings. But New York means also homeless people, smells of all kinds, tuktuks, congestion, very high prices, queues, beggars opening the front door of the supermarket, gangs hanging out on the street corner.

It is an unique city, different from anything I have encountered so far.

In the hope that they will be useful to you, I leave below some details about accommodation and transport.

#1: Plane tickets ✈️

Costs for two round-trip Economy class tickets start at $1,200 for two people. I bought them directly from the official website of the Lufthansa company, six months prior to the actual vacation. I had two checked bags and two cabin bags, enough for the pile of clothes I carried after me + other things I took from there 🫣. If you will have a stopover in Munich, I advise you to eat consistently in Bucharest (in the food court area they did not have many options: overpriced sandwiches and pretzels).

#2: How I chose the hotel 🌃

6-7 months before departure I started actively looking for hotels in Manhattan, with access to the most important points I wanted to visit.

SpringHill Suites by Marriott is located on New York's only flower shop street, 28th St, in Chelsea, Midtown Manhattan. On Booking it has a score of 8.2 because of the breakfast 🤦‍♀️ (the space is quite small, the accommodation capacity is large - the hotel has 44 floors and people are waiting for a free table in a big queue). I only ate there the first morning, then I discovered the patisseries in the area 😋: Le Pain Cotidien and Paris Baquette on 6th Avenue are top if you're a fan of puff pastry, crème patisserie and chocolate.

One night's accommodation cost $220 and it was worth every penny. The room was super clean, the furniture brand new and the view from the 26th floor simply...breathtaking. As a bonus, I could see the World Trade Center and the Statue of Liberty from the bed, an image I still have in my mind.

#3: JFK - Manhattan

It should have been simple and we probably would have reached the hotel in 60 minutes, but a moment of distraction at Jamaica Station cost me an hour and a half delay. The journey from JFK Airport to Manhattan is basically super easy: from the airport terminal there is a free shuttle to the AirTrain station that takes you two stops, followed by the subway from Jamaica to Pennsylvania Station. You just have to carefully read the information on the right (picture 2) and ignore the colored lines that, after 12 hours of flight, misled me (and that's how I woke up on a train going to Long Island 😹 ).

#4: Transportation through/from Manhattan

Subway

I rode the subway through Manhattan and I admit that it seemed complicated at first. Much more complicated than in Istanbul or London. The price of a ride is now $2.90 and you can pay with your phone, watch or any contactless debit/credit card (with Revolut I succeeded only for the first two days, then they started blocking my payments - I didn't find out why, although I repeatedly contacted the support team; ING worked perfectly instead , without any problem).

To take the subway in the correct direction you have to consider that streets in Manhattan are abbreviated with "St" and arranged from East to West, while the boulevards ("Ave") are always perpendicular to the streets, from North to South. Street numbers increase from South to North, so from the Financial District to Central Park, and boulevard numbers increase from East to West. In addition to all these indicators, there would be three areas dividing Manhattan: Uptown, Midtown and Downtown. Uptown (everything above 59th Street) stretches from Central Park to the Bronx and Queens, Midtown means everything between 59th and 14th streets (the most famous of the areas because it contains most of the skyscrapers, Times Square, Bryant Park, Broadway, etc.), and Downtown includes all streets below number 14.

Train

If you want to take the subway to New Jersey you must have cash or a credit card, the machines are older and work with difficulty. The third option is to stop a New Yorker and ask him to let you in using his card, and you give him back cash (been there, done that 🤭). The price of a trip is $3.

After two weeks in NYC, I took the train from Moynihan Station to Philadelphia. I bought the tickets two months in advance, directly from the website AMTRAK ($38/2 tickets) and the trip took an hour and 25 min.

Lyft/Taxi Lyft is a rideshare company similar to Bolt/Uber. I found the app simple to use, I tried it in Manhattan for short distances or from New Jersey to the airfield from where I took the helicopter ride. The drivers were super friendly and sociable and their cars were Black Cab class in Romania. Payment is made online, directly from the application. For a 10 minute ride through Manhattan (night time) I paid $16-17, including city tax, traffic tax and tip for the driver.