What happens when your older sister invites you to spend 5 days in New York City with her to celebrate her birthday? You jump at the chance to go- duh!
After years of longing to visit New York, we made our first trip to the city in Spring 2018. I researched what sights we should see and looked into different things to do for what felt like months. Our vacation ended up being jam packed because of it. And our time there slowly started making me consider moving to the Big Apple.
If you’re planning a trip to New York and want ideas of how to structure your vacation, or if you just enjoy looking at how other people spend their vacations (I know I do!), I’ve documented our time there. While I don’t have a ton of photos from our 5 days in New York City, I’ll share some of the best ones, as well as our itinerary, with you.
Day 1 (Travel Day)
Like most of my travel days, I was up at before the sun! Getting to New York from Las Vegas is a full day event, usually with some kind of layover, so we either catch red eyes or originators. Once we landed in New York and checked in to our Brooklyn Airbnb, it was time for dinner. And in true New York fashion, we went to a deli near our rental and got some sandwiches and groceries. We were all too exhausted to do much else.
Day 2 (Sightseeing)
On our first full day in New York, we met up with a cousin of ours. He was living in Brooklyn at the time, just a few blocks from our Airbnb. The first thing he did was take us to Bergen Bagels so we’d have fuel to walk around Manhattan. Once in the city, we headed to the Brooklyn Bridge. We walked around a bit of the bridge to take some photos. As a cloudy day turned into rain, we made our way to the 9/11 Memorial site and One World Trade. The memorial was beautiful and the rain made the experience feel all the more somber. We definitely spent a good chunk of time there, paying our respects to the victims.
After walking around the Financial District, we made a pit stop at Brookfield Place Mall to get snacks, more water, and find a restroom. For those of you unfamiliar with walking around New York- restrooms are few and far in-between. When you find one- you take advantage! From there, we sought out the African Burial Ground Monument near 290 Broadway (on the corner of Duane St and Elk St). It was another somber, spiritual moment for all of us.
From there, our next stops were Washington Square Park, the Flat Iron Building, and Grand Central Station. I really enjoyed getting to look at all of the different architecture in New York. It’s one of the things that’s always drawn me to New York and the east coast in general. The West Coast doesn’t have monuments or buildings like the ones mentioned above, and I have yet to find a city with such a diverse population.
I have always had an appreciation for the arts and architecture. Which is why it should come as no surprise that I wanted to spend the rest of our first day in the city at a museum. I specifically wanted to go to The MoMA. But my cousin suggested we hit The Met. And so we found ourselves spending the next few hours in the museum, until we couldn’t ignore our hunger anymore. We headed back to Brooklyn and got dinner at a local restaurant (the name of which, none of us wrote down). After that, it was time to rest up before gearing up for another day of adventure.
Day 3 (More Sightseeing)
We all felt sore when we woke up. After all, we’d walked a little over 16 miles (according to my iPhone). So our second full day in New York was a bit slower. We took a ride on the Staten Island Ferry. It was cool to see the Statue of Liberty in person! None of us cared enough to go to Ellis Island and we certainly weren’t feeling climbing Lady Liberty, so this was the next best option.
After lazing about on there Ferry, we decided to go to The American Museum of Natural History. My sister (the birthday girl) wanted to see some of the pieces and exhibits from Night at the Museum. But being the novices to New York that we were, we had no idea the museum would close before 6. By the time we got to the museum, we had just under 2 hours to make our way to the few pieces my sister really wanted to see. So naturally, I decided to take the lead. I was able to navigate us through the museum and find the big pieces my sister longed to see. And you know what? It was totally worth it! We were still too tired from our first day in the city to spend more than a couple hours walking around.
We made our way out of the museum and decided to stop at a nearby Nathan’s truck and sit in Central Park West. Hunger sated and feet resting, we people and nature watched for an hour or so. It felt amazing to just relax and connect with nature. By the time the sun started setting, we had to head back to Brooklyn. Another cousin of ours offered to take us on a driving tour of Manhattan at night, so we could enjoy all the neon lights.
We drove through Times Square. It was heaven to see everything without having to bump elbows with the other tourists. From there, we kept driving north until we hit Harlem. We drove by The Apollo since we wouldn’t have had time to see anything there during our trip. It’s hard to explain how moving it was to see a place that birthed so many artists I’d grown up listening to. Our driving tour ended soon afterward, and we headed back to Brooklyn to get some much needed rest.
Day 4 (Broadway, Baby)
After a good night’s rest, we decided to go see a matinee on Broadway. The options were Chicago, The Lion King, Waitress, and Wicked. My sister(again I say, birthday girl) wanted to see Chicago, but we couldn’t find 4 seats together at the last minute. Her second choice was Wicked. I looked online and found 4 tickets at Mezzanine level for the same day. We decided to go with that. After we all finished getting ready, we had an impromptu photoshoot/selfie session on the stoop of our Airbnb. Then we were off to Fan Fan Doughnuts for breakfast.
We ate our doughnuts on the way to catch the train into Manhattan. The excitement between my sister and I was palpable. Neither of us had seen Wicked before. We’d listened to the soundtrack, but seeing it was different. By the time the Ozian map flew out, I knew I’d enjoy whatever performance we were about to see. And I did! I also, being a stage manager and theatre worker myself, at that moment started to realize that I could do that. I could work on a Broadway musical. To this day, I still believe seeing Wicked lit a fire under my ass, but that’s a different blog post.
On a high from seeing Wicked, and extremely hungry, we found a local Italian restaurant for dinner. I forgot to note the name of the restaurant again, but I’ll never forget how happy and full I felt when we left. We decided to walk off dinner by going back to Times Square and walking around a little bit. By the time we’d taken enough selfies and had our fill of the madness, we went on one last stop to Juniors Cheesecake. We took our orders back to the Airbnb where we winded down for the night and packed up. Our 5 days in New York City was coming to an end.
Day 5 (Travel Day)
We never leave a vacation as early as we begin one, so we were all able to sleep in on our final day in New York. By this point, we were spent. We came to New York on a mission, and having completed it, we were ready to go back home to catch a little bit more sleep before heading back to work. My sister really enjoyed her 30th birthday. And as for me? I began a long love affair with the idea of moving to New York to work both on and off Broadway.
Our 5 days in New York City were full of fun, exercise, good food, and amazing company. I’d recommend a vacation in New York to anyone who asks. Yes, it’s crowded. Yes, it’s expensive. And it can even be called dirty. But if you’re a city person or interested in seeing a big city firsthand, it’s worth it. I know New Yorkers get a bad rep, but they’re not bad people. Just don’t go to New York and act like an idiot. Use common sense and you’ll have a great time. I know I did.
