5 Days in New York City

New York is one of the most vibrant cities in the world, and an awesome city to explore on foot. 5 days in New York are just about the perfect amount of time to spend in the city at an easy pace. I had listed some of our expenses below.

Flight Ticket

4 days itinerary in San Diego can be viewed here

Getting Around New York

New York has a wide network of buses, metro lines and taxis. The most convenient way to move around is by metro (known as subway), which runs 24/7. Tickets cost $3, but if you have a Metro Card you’ll pay $2.75 per ride.

Tip: Get the unlimited metro card (7 days) at 33usd.

You will need to buy a MetroCard to use the MTA buses and subways, which you can purchase at any subway station. One of our cards was not dispensed by the machine and the only way to get the refund back was to write in to the MTA..

By Subway/Bus:

The City’s rail and bus system is run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and known as MTA New York City Transit. It operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, is inexpensive as well as being a great way to see sights throughout the five boroughs that make up the City. We visited Manhattan, Harlem and Brooklyn with MTA conveniently.

By Taxi:

Do download Uber and Lyft as a backup plan. We used Uber from EWR airport to our airbnb, as we can't seem to locate the airbus. Taxi cost around 70usd which is relatively affordable compared to the airbus (~top up 40usd). It is definitely a relief that we used a cab as it would have been so troublesome to navigate around the subway with our bulky luggages and stairs.

By Ferry:

New York is home to an extensive ferry system that can get you uptown or downtown in Manhattan as well as across the rivers to Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens and New Jersey.

NYC Ferry and NY Waterway are the two main ferry operators, with the Staten Island Ferry also available for commuting and sight seeing tours. The ferry that connects Manhattan to Staten Island is free, and you can view Statue of Liberty as well. The ride there and back lasts about one hour and the ferry runs frequently.  

Glad to know the above tip, or else we would probably take a cruise.

Accommodation

We ended up staying at a Singaporean's apartment at 500usd for 5 nights, near Queens station. It was convenient, safe and quiet. It's important to stay at somewhere safe if your activities end quite late (10pm).

If you are visiting New York during non-peak season, your airbnb prices will definitely be cheaper than ours.

Food

The food in USA is affordable and filling. We went to iconic places and had beef pastrami, bagels etc. If we had a dine in meal, it cost around 50-70usd for 2 pax. Daily breakfast was so filling, that we could have skipped lunch and ate a little for dinner. But it's hard to resist all the delicious food so the bulk of our money was spent on food.

Cash/card

We brought 4K USD cash for 2 pax for a 3 weeks trip in USA. Youtrip exchange rate is better than Instarem. We had to use cash for food mostly. Purchases was used on card. We have 2K USD leftover, so do take note of your leftover cash and spend them if you like.

Day 1 itinerary

• Katz's Delicatessen for beef pastrami
• Russ & Daughters for cream cheese bagel
• Red Gate Bakery 
• Levain Bakery for classic chocolate chip and dark chocolate cookie
• Little italy 
• Little Market NYC
• Chinatown for Canal Street Market
• Mei Lai Wah (char siew bolo bun)
• The Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory
• Alimama Tea for mochi donut, cream puff, Cereal Donut, Brown Sugar Boba Cream Puff, Yuzu Cream Puff, and Passion Fruit Green Tea.
• The Market Line (market)
• Essex Market 
• T.J. Maxx
• Columbus Centre shopping mall
• Laduree macaron
• Momofuku Noodle Bar Uptown
• Columbus Circle Holiday Market
• Venchi Chocolate & Gelato Columbus Circle
• Magnolia Bakery

Expenses

Day 2 itinerary

• Westside Market NYC
• Milano market westside
• The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine
• Down to Earth Morningside Park Farmers Market 
• Brooklyn Bridge View 
• Brooklyn flea 
• Manhattan Bridge lookout
• Dumbo - Manhattan Bridge View 
• Time Out Market New York: Park BBQ, Clinton st, Canolli, Ess-a-bagel 
• Brooklyn library
• Brooklyn museum
• Brooklyn botanic garden
• Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket 
• Harry Potter New York for shopping and butterbeer
• Flatiron building
• Eataly NYC Flatiron 

Day 3 itinerary

• Barney greenfield
• 79th Street Greenmarket 
• Grand Bazaar NYC 
• Levain Bakery 
• Mille-feuille Bakery Cafe  
• American museum of natural history
• Columbia Greenmarket
• Central park 
• Nuts for nuts at Central park
• Best buy
• Target
• Canal street market for tacos
• Eataly 
• World trade centre
• Oculus Center
• Brookfield place

Day 4 itinerary

• Staten Island Ferry Terminal Bar board at Whitehall Terminal
• Statue of Liberty View Point
• New york stock exchange
• Charging Bull
• Joe’s pizza
• Chelsea market for lobster and sashimi
• Little Island
• The high line
• Vessel
• Hudson Yards
• Miznon
• Los Tacos No. 1 
• Schmackary’s eggnog milkshake
• Times square
• Grand central market for lobster, sashimi and crab cakes
• Rockefeller Center

Day 5 itinerary

• Dag Hammarskjold Plaza Greenmarket 
• Mcdonalds and Red rooster at Harlem
• Chinatown
• City Hall
• Times square
• Radio City Music Hall
• Bank of America Winter Village At Bryant Park
• Halal guys

Day 5.5 itinerary

• The Met
• Macy
• Target
• Empire State Building
• Tacombi
• Wah Fung Fast Food (roast meat)
• Keki modern cakes for puffs and cheesetart
• Xi'an Famous Foods for noodles

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