Tips for traveling to New York City

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Hi my dreamers, I hope you are doing well 😀

In this article, I’ll give you some tips for traveling to New York City, following the trip I took in 2017 (yes it’s dated but better late than never! ^^ ”).

I am not encouraging anyone to travel at this time (I haven’t traveled abroad since 2019 although I miss traveling) but it is in anticipation of an improvement of the situation. That’s why, it’s on purpose that I’m not going to deal with any conditions to get there RIGHT NOW with anything related to quarantine, vaccine, PCR testing, etc.

• Visa

First thing, to travel to the United States, you must obtain a visa (ESTA for “Electronic System for Travel Authorization”) on the website: esta.cbp.dhs.gov

It’s very quick to do even if they ask a lot of questions and it only costs about ten dollars. Then the authorization is approved in around 3 days I would say. However, they do not send an email to notify you that the authorization has been approved. You must log in to the website to verify so keep your application number! Finally, ESTA is valid for 2 years. For a stay of fewer than 90 days, this is the document you need.

• Transportation

To get around by public transportation, you can buy a yellow Metro Card that you can load as you wish (for 1 day, for 1 week, etc.) and it can be used again if you come back to New York City. You will therefore no longer have to pay for the card itself but just reload it. Please note that you must buy another card for trips to the airport, which is white and green.

I find the subway trains old and too air-conditioned, but clean (in comparison to Paris). I don’t think I saw any elevator or escalator, but only stairs with, in addition, large steps. Then there are several metro lines in the same color (but why ???) so you can easily go wrong. Also, you have to pay attention to the type of train you are taking, whether it stops at all the stations or if it stops at a few stations because it is written nowhere so you have to listen to announcements carefully.

The subway is what I liked the least in New York City because you never know how soon the next subway will arrive. It’s written nowhere so sometimes the wait can seem endless. And then when you arrive at a station, you have to twist your neck to be able to see between all the pillars, a sign that indicates the name of the station.

Taking the bus was less of a hassle except I never knew if I could get out the back door or not lol. Everyone got off by the front door but sometimes by the back door, which had to be pushed by oneself and with difficulty in addition.

• Suitcases

On my return from New York City, when I landed in Paris after a stopover in London, I did not find my suitcase at the airport. It stayed overseas because the TSA (Transportation Security Administration), opened my suitcase and searched in it.

I knew what happened when I got my suitcase back a day or two after my return to Paris. My suitcase had absolutely nothing special or suspicious, in my opinion. I saw that there was no more padlock on the lock, but it was broken inside my suitcase with a piece of paper that said “Notice of baggage inspection”. I did not appreciate they broke my padlock and searched in my suitcase/my privacy BUT fortunately, they returned it to me quite quickly and nothing had been stolen because without a padlock it could have been the case.

So if you are traveling to the United States, I strongly recommend that you lock your luggage with a TSA-approved padlock (some suitcases are equipped with it). The US transport authorities have the universal key to open them, which avoids breaking your traditional padlock (although of course, this is not the most annoying thing).

• Budget

I cannot tell you exactly how much budget you will need to stay there for x days, especially during the period you will be going. But to give you an idea, I can tell you how much my 9-day stay for 2 people in 2017 cost. I would say we were around 3,000 €.

Just with the plane tickets (1,138 €), the Airbnb in Brooklyn (560 €), the passes for the visits (220 €), the tickets for a show in Broadway (approximately 300 €), we exceed 2,000 €. So if we also count transportation, meals with tips, and shopping, we will therefore round up to 3,000 €. Even if New York City is an expensive city, going there for the same duration but with a smaller budget is possible because it depends on what you want to do.

• Planning

New York City is such big with so much to see that 9 days was not enough to see everything we wanted. However, I think that we did a lot of things though because I had planned our entire stay (the places we were going to visit and the restaurants where we could eat nearby), which was very useful and allowed us to save a lot of time. We didn’t fully stick to my schedule but when we were in a particular neighborhood, we already knew what we wanted to do there and where we could eat.

What we did was to visit 1 (or 2 if we quickly visited the 1st) district per day (or half-day), to stay within a perimeter, and not to waste time making long journeys all over New York City. If there was something we absolutely wanted to do or something we had already paid for in advance, at x place, at x time, we made sure to visit that same neighborhood and to eat nearby before, so as not to have to travel too much and to avoid arriving late.

Our Airbnb being in Brooklyn, we kept small places nearby to visit on the day of our arrival and the day of our departure so that we could enjoy these partial days. The very first days we started by visiting what was closest to Brooklyn, so the southern districts of New York City. In my opinion, to start, it is better to visit what is nearby because if it takes time to familiarize ourselves with the environment, transportation, etc. and that it is getting late quickly, it does not matter because we are near our accommodation so it is more reassuring. Then as the days went by, knowing better about transportation, etc., we went to neighborhoods further north and therefore further away from Brooklyn.

So that’s my advice in order not to waste much time during your stay. BUT you should not plan too many things or down to the minute because there are always unforeseen events.

And you, have you ever been to New York City? How did you organize to visit the Big Apple? Has your suitcase ever been searched in?

If you are interested, in the next article I will tell you about my visits!

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