Seven Days in New York: Exploring the City That Never Sleeps
You can’t imagine how excited we were to write this post. This Easter 2023, we fulfilled one of our travel dreams, to visit a place that we have seen so many times in films and series. We could spend 7 days in New York.
What to say about this city? It’s one of the most charismatic cities we have ever known. NY has 5 big districts: Manhattan, The Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island and each of them is divided in smaller neighbors or areas, most of the times with people from the same country.
We think it’s a perfect city to visit in 7 days if it’s your first time. It was our first time, so spending 7 days in New York was ideal to distribute your trip in areas and see everything calmly and enjoying. It has a lot of things to visit so make a list of must-see places in New York specially if you go a few days. Here you can see a other post with our Must-See Places in New York to help you!
Some aspects to remark are that we tried to save money in aspects like food or accommodation. We slept in a place in Queens called Hunters Point, that had a metro station 10 minutes from Times Square. That made us save money in the accommodation. We stayed in the Feather Factory Hotel. Our evaluation of the hotel is not bad at all, but it has some negative aspects like being in a isolated area in front of a train railway, the night noise of the train and, as we said, it’s not in Manhattan.
Additionally, we took the New York City Pass, that gave us tickets for 5 attractions of the city: Top of the Rock, Circle Line (ship around Manhattan), Empire State, 11S museum and the American Museum of Natural History. Soon, we will bring a post with tips to save money in New York ;).
The last point to mention is that we took out an insurance of IATI, in this case the IATI Estrella. In a trip to USA it is more essential than ever to have a travel insurance, as the majority of hospitals in USA are privates and they charge a lot for any service they can give. For that, we leave you here a 5% of discount in IATI to ensure you don’t have any unexpected problem in your trip.
With that being said, let’s enjoy this trip through the amazing New York!
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ToggleDay 1: Times Square area, Manhattan center
Our first day of the route of 7 days in New York, we went to the Big Apple center, to one of the most iconic squares in the world and the surrounding area, the well-known Times Square. How many times we imagined this square! You feel tiny with so many skyscrapers around if it’s your first time. We did the whole route of the day by foot, as all places were close.
Times Square is placed in the center of Manhattan, so our plan was to visit things in this area during the day. After Times Square, we went to a pretty shop of M&M’s, that was near it. We have already been in the London’s one, so we went there and we had some sweets.
After that, we went to Rockefeller Center, one of the most emblematic places of the city and walk around. Near it, it’s the famous Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, that contrasts a lot with the skyscrapers around.
Once the cathedral was visited, we saw that the famous Lego Store was in front. It is worth to visit it, it’s great!
We keep going north to see the MoMa and Trump Tower, property of the polemic former president of the United States. Once reached this point, we walked through the 5th Avenue, one of the most important of NY, and we went south to have lunch in a park in the middle of Manhattan, the Bryant Park, that has a relaxed environment and where you can see lots of NY citizens doing different activities.
After lunch, we wanted to cover different places, as it was the outside of the SUMMIT One Vanderbilt, the famous Central Station of New York and we had the climb to the Top of the Rock, the viewpoint of the Rockefeller Center. It is an incredible view of the city from that high, a image that will be in our minds forever (even though it was very crowded).
Where to eat
In this first day, we ate in Whole Foods of Bryant Park. Whole foods is a supermarket that you will see a lot in NY and that have an area to make your own salads by weight for a price between 15 and 25 $. The products are healthy and have good quality so it’s a 2×1, you eat healthy and for a good price ;).
For dinner time, we chose Shake Shack of Times Square, one of the most known burger restaurants of the city. Mentioning that we really liked this place even though it is a fast food place. The price was 15$ per person.
Day 2: Central Park and Broadway, Manhattan center
The second day of our trip started in the well-known Central Park, a mythical place of NY. We started the excursion entering through the south entrance of the park, and our intention was to walk until the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir lake and walk around.
Mentioning that the best way of visiting the park in our opinion is by bike, as it allows you to see more area in less time, and it’s totally adapted to leave the bikes and stop in the most famous places. We decided to walk as we had time and we wanted to be the whole morning there.
We stayed for 3-4 hours in the park and we could see and take photos of some interest places like:
- The Mall
- La Bethesda Terrace and the famous fountain,
- The Lake and Bow Bridge,
- Conservatory Watey lake
- Alice in Wonderland statue,
- Strawberry Fields,
- Sheep Meadow
- Belvedere Castle
After this long walk, we had lunch in the Upper West Side and after, we went to the American Museum of Natural History. What a great place! It is one of the coolest museums we have ever been in as the scenes that represent the animals environments are really realistic. The dinosaurs area is also amazing.
To end the day, we had one of the key points of this trip of 7 days in New York, see a Broadway show. And it was one of the best we have ever seen. We decided to see Aladdin and it was amazing, we strongly recommend it. To buy tickets, we used Tiqets.com, a reliable website to take tickets of all kinds. We preferred to have this bought from home, so if you have that clear, take the tickets with time!
Where to eat
We lunched in a restaurant of southern food specialized in battered chicken and pickles. We really enjoyed it! They gave us a lot of food for a reasonable price. In addition, you can try beers of different places in the USA. It’s called Jacob’s Pickles and it’s in the Upper West Side. We spent 35$ per person.
For dinner, we took hot dogs in the street near the Broadway show.
Day 3: 11S museum, financial district and SoHo, South Manhattan
We started the third day of the trip visiting the place where happened one of the worst terrorist attacks of the history, the World Trade Center, where the Twin Towers were knocked down the 11S of the 2001. The entrance to the museum was included in the New York CityPass and we had to select the time to go inside. The museum is really spectacular, a great tribute to all the attack victims and a diary of all that happened on this day, so we strongly recommend to visit it, even though it leave you a bad feeling.
After dedicating the full morning to the museum and the surroundings we had lunch before doing our visit to the financial district of NY, one of the world’s economic centers. We could walk through the area and visit places like the famous Charging Bull, the Trinity Church, the Federal Hall (we recommend to go inside, it has a great dome and it’s free), the New York Stock Exchange and Fearless Girl and we ended in the Battery Park, where you have views to the Liberty Statue (our day was not the best to see it).
Where to eat
In the lunch time, we went to another typical fast food place of NY, los Tacos Nº1. We really liked this place, it was very good and the service was very curious. If you like Mexican food, don’t hesitate on visiting it, you will really enjoy it! The approximate price was 15$ per person.
At dinner time, we had a recommendation to go to an Italian restaurant called Piccola Cucina Osteria, 30$ per person.
Day 4: Circle Line, Hudson Yards and Chelsea, Manhattan west
An interesting activity to do in a trip of 7 days in New York is to take a ship that goes around Manhattan island and it goes to the Statue of Libery island. That was our plan in the morning of our 4th day in New York. That’s another of the activities that the New York City Pass included.
You can choose between several options in this case. There are ships that simply go to the Statue of Liberty (from the ship, you can’t go out) and they bring you back, another option (the intermediate one) is to cover a part of Manhattan and you go back, and the complete one, where you go around all the Manhattan island in 2 hours and a half. We opted for the third option and it was good. It’s true that at the end it was a little bit long, but the ride was nice and it give you a different view of the dimension of the city. It was also great as we could see the Statue of Liberty from a great place.
After the ship ride, we wanted to visit Hudson Yards, a new area of Manhattan. Firstly, we visited The Vessel, a super curious construction that is nice. Then, we stopped to have lunch in the mall of Hudson Yards, in a place called Little Spain (we explain it below).
With a full belly, we walked though the High Line, a aerial park that was created near an abandoned railway of a train. This park goes to the Chelsea Market, another place that is worth to visit if you want to buy or lunch. As we were in the area, we visited Chelsea, one of the neighbors that we liked the most, as it was really authentic and modern and has lots of super cool places like the house of Carrie Bradshaw of Sex in New York or the Friends building. We finished in Washington Square, a crowded square full of
young people where you can rest and observe how they live.
We had dinner in the Times Square area, this time in the famous Ellen’s Stardust Dinner, detailed below.
Where to eat
The food of this 4th day of our serie of 7 days in New York was in Little Spain. It is a Spanish food market created by the chef Jose Andrés. We really enjoyed this place, you can try lots of different dishes from the Spanish gastronomy of great quality as they are supervised by a famous chef. It is inside the Hudson Yards mall and the price varies depending on what you order, in our case 30$ per person.
For dinner, we visited a place that we wanted to visit, the Ellen’s Stardust Dinner. It is a place with a long queue no matter the time you go, as you have dinner seeing the waiters sing, as they are potential singers of the Broadway shows. We started the queue at 6pm and we went inside at 7:30pm. We recommend it as it’s a different experience The approximate price is 30$ per person, and the food type is burgers and sandwich.
Day 5: Empire State, Chinatown and Little Italy, Manhattan Center and Southeast
The 5th day of this serie of 7 days in New York brought us to one of the most emblematic places of NY and of the world, the Empire State Building. We had the entrance at 10 with the New York City pass and it’s really worth it to visit the building. It has a museum where they explain you the building history before guiding you to the top of it where you will enjoy one of the best 360º views of Manhattan.
After visiting the building, we wanted to walk though the surroundings of the building to see some of the most interesting points. We could see the Koreatown street, full of Korean places, Madison Square, Flatiron Building and Union Square.
Then, we went to have lunch to one of the most curious places of the city, Chinatown. This neighbor is made up of people from China and it looks like you are in this country. After lunching and walking though the area, we went to another neighbor near it called Little Italy, where you could find lots of places with Italian food and people from this country. Lately, we walked though Nolita, a bohemian area. The reality was that those 3 areas were not spectacular for us, we expected something different, but we still think that you have to visit it if you go to NY.
The afternoon was dedicated to rest and have some fun and we went to a place called Slate, where you can have some drinks meanwhile you play billar and bowling.
Where to eat
We had lunch in a Chinatown restaurant called Uncle Low. It was greta and had a reasonable price, 25$ per person.
In the dinner time, we had some pizza slices to go and eat in the hotel. We were recommended to go to the most famous of the city, Joe’s Pizza.
Day 6: Contrasts tour and Williamsbourg
We couldn’t spend 7 days in New York and not going out of Manhattan, so the 6th day, we made an activity that really attracted us, a 5 hours tour through the main districts of the city, the Contrast tour. This tour is made in a max. 15 persons car (in our case with Spanish guide) that explains you lots of curious things about the city and the American culture. In the tour we visited places like Harlem, The Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens and you can stop in all all them except Harlem:
– Apollo Theater and main Harlem Streets
– The Joker stairs (The Bronx)
– Yankees Stadium (The Bronx)
– Street painting (The Bronx)
– Malba neighbor (Queens)
– Flushing Meadows and Open USA stadium (Queens)
– Roosevelt Avenue (Queens)
– Orthodox jewish neigbour (Williamsburg, Brooklyn)
– Dumbo (Brooklyn)
The tour ends in the Dumbo neighbor, near the Brooklyn bridge. We really enjoyed the tour, but one of the most impactful things was the Orthodox neighbor as it looks like you are transported to another century. Inform about their culture before going, it’s really curious.
We stopped in Dumbo, a places where you can have a great gastronomic offer and cool to walk through. After lunching and walking, we wanted to go to the Brooklyn bridge to Manhattan and take photos of this emblematic place. It was super crowded, but we took some nice photos.
After crossing and thinking about next plans, we decided to see the official building of the United Nations and, from there, we went back to Williamsburg to walk through the bars and restaurants area, have some drinks and see an incredible sunset from Brushwick Inlet Park.
Where to eat
Our lunch in this 6th day of the route of 7 days in New York we wanted to go to the Timeout Market, where you can find lots of different places of American food but we couldn’t find a table, so we decided to go to a brunch. We went to Henry’s End, and we gave them a good rating as it was very good. It costed us 20$ per person.
At dinner time, we visited an Italian restaurant in Williamsburg that we enjoyed a lot called La Nonna. Carbonara was incredible! The price was 25$ per person
Day 7: Harlem, Gospel and north Central Park, North Manhattan
And the last day of our adventure of 7 days in New York arrived. We still had one interesting area to visit, the Afroamerican area, Harlem. We went early in the morning as we wanted to see a Gospel ceremony firstly. After gathering some information, we decided to go to Bethel Gospel Assembly. After seeing it, we think that is a curious experience, as it’s really impactful how they feel their religion and their relationship with God. Moreover, they are really hospitable and they are really grateful that you go there. Our opinion is also that this place we went it’s a little bit oriented to tourism, so you can also choose to walk through the Harlem streets and access one of the churches you will find to see something more authentic.
After that, we had a walk in Harlem. We didn’t went to any specific place (except Apollo Theatre, place that see the first actings of stars like Michael Jackson or Whitney Houston), but we walked and captured the essence of the area for a couple of hours.
Next, we went to the north area of the Central Park, as we couldn’t see it the day we visited the park. We had a walk in the area, we had lunch in a nearer place and then we went back to the hotel walking to the Upper East Side and taking a metro from there. That was the end of our trip, as we had to go to the airport 🙁
Where to eat
For lunch, we went to an African food place in Harlem called Teranga, inside the building of Africa Center. We strongly recommend it, it’s a top place and the food was great. They charged us 20$ per person.
Map
As you could see, out trip of 7 days in New York was super complete and intense, but the city really deserves it and even more if it’s your first time there. It has lots of interest places and lots of leisure activities, so prepare to walk and see many places. We really thing that we will go back to this city, as we really enjoyed it and it looks like a place where we could go back thousands of times.
As we always say, don’t hesitate on contacting us through social media or in the comments if you want any specific information or if you have questions about the information above.
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