Explore New York City| Our recent trip

Welcome readers to part two of my travel post about visiting two cities in July. This was our first trip post-pandemic, and our first air travel in two years. In my earlier travel post dated July 13, I wrote about our vacation to Pittsburgh, and this post is about our next five days in New York City. We flew from Pitt to LGA on July 7 and flew back from JFK to IAH, Houston on July 11th night. So read on about our third trip to NYC, the city of dreams and the city that never sleeps!

We love New York, or to be specific, my older one loves visiting New York. We have visited NY three times so far. The first visit was in 2004 when my older was just over a year old and we were living in Delaware. We had visited Niagara Falls and Times Square then. Next visit was in 2014 (after 10 years) when my father-in-law was visiting us from India. We drove from Houston to NY, which is more than 1600 miles and it took us two days to reach. We love road trips, and it was not too big of an issue. If interested, read this post about our road trip experiences. Road trips are fun and enjoyable, if everyone in the family feels the same way. We just took a night halt and driving 12+ hours the first day and the next, we were able to reach NYC before midnight of the second day. This third trip was the first time flying to NY and overall it was a wonderful break in the longest time ever of not traveling in 18 months for us! So read on about how we explored NYC.

Day 1 of NYC exploration

We flew from Pittsburgh to LaGuardia airport on 7/7 at around noon. Our booking for four nights stay was at Hyatt Centrica on Times Square. Our room was on the 22nd floor facing Times Square, and I clicked couple of pictures from our hotel room with the lit background at midnight.

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Of course the first thing we did was walk around in the Times Square. Little later in the evening we visited Central Park for few hours and ended the day with Italian dinner- pasta with alfredo and marinara sauce. Lunch was at the airport, and we had a good night rest ready for more walking in the city the next day.

Day 2

The next day we visited Highline and Brooklyn Heights promenade. We also took long walks on both the Brooklyn bridge and the Manhattan bridge. It was fun strolling DUMBO, which stand for down under the Manhattan bridge. We also went to Jane Carousal, and it was a beautiful view of the city. We ended the day with some shopping at Forever 21 and H &M. Dinner was Indian while the lunch was at Shake Shack and falafel was an evening snack. We tried to continue our exploration of different cuisines in this trip, the first leg of which was in Pittsburgh and the second leg at NYC.

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Day 3

Did you know that the New York City Subway System is the largest subway system in the world, with 468 train stations and 26 subway lines? We rode the subway from Grand Central and took the ferry to Coney Island, then to Staten Island. Kids spent some time in the beach on Coney Island and did a couple roller coaster rides. Lunch was pizza from the local vendor, and dinner was Mexican.

Coney Island is a New York City neighborhood that features an amusement area that includes 50 or more separate rides and attractions; it’s not a centrally managed amusement park like Disneyland or Six Flags. You can read more here.

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Day 4

We visited Bronx museum, park and rode the metro again to explore the Queens park. Metro back from Manhattan to Grand Central. Lunch was Burger King at Queens, which was managed by a Desi woman. She was very friendly and treated us very generously. Dinner was Mediterranean at Cava. Later at night we also went to the Empire State building. Surprisingly there was no long lines and we had an amazing view from the top. The only wait was due to the rain and thunder around midnight, due to which we had to wait to go outside as the doors were temporarily locked for safety purpose. It was chilly and drizzly, but it was all worth the wait and experience.

Intended to be the world’s first 100+ story building, construction of the Empire State Building began on March 17, 1930. Construction was completed in a record-breaking 1 year and 45 days. You can read more about it here. The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States. It was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its name is derived from “Empire State”, the nickname of the state of New York.

Day 5

The last day we walked around the U N building and Chase tower, as my husband works at Chase in Houston. JPMorgan Chase Tower is a 52-story skyscraper in New York City at Park Avenue. Had lunch at Nishida Sho-ten which is a Japanese cuisine. I would add that being a vegetarian we have limited choices for food but we always end up exploring and finding some of our liking, which is great! Our flight back to Houston was at 7:30 pm. We had checked out of the Hyatt at 11 am but went back at 4 pm to collect our luggage, and reached airport by 5 pm. Reached Houston around 10:30 pm and were home before midnight.

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Wrap Up

To summarize my older one loves to visit New York, and this time we did different NYC boroughs tour and NYC exploration. There are five boroughs in New York which are like a smaller city within the massive metropolis—the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island—each with dozens of neighborhoods lending their own local flavor. You can explore more by clicking on this link .

New York state is most known for New York City and towering Niagara Falls. Since we have already visited Niagara Falls and Statue of Liberty twice (2004 and 2014) this time we explored the New York City. NYC’s island of Manhattan is home to the Empire State Building, Times Square and Central Park. The Brooklyn Bridge connects Manhattan with the borough of Brooklyn. There is so much to explore in the city, and our favorite is always the Times Square.

Dear readers, we would love to hear from you. Have you visited NYC? What is your favorite place to visit there? Do share any recent post-pandemic vacation details, if any

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