How to See Everything in New York City in 2 Days!!
The Lake at Central Park-you can rent rowboats and paddle boats in the summer-fall!
When we want to get away for the weekend, we want to go somewhere and maximize our time to see everything we can while we’re there! So the first time we went to New York City (in 2018), we tried to see all of New York’s highlights!
The New York welcome sign at La Guardia airport
We flew into La Guardia airport after work and took the Q70 bus to the Subway station, then the Subway to our hotel, the Empire Hotel. As someone who spent her teenage years watching the original Gossip Girl, we had to stay at Chuck Bass’s hotel! Once settled in, we took the Subway to Times Square to start our New York experience! We met up with a friend while on there and just walked around to see the bright lights. We headed back to the hotel for a good night’s rest to start the next day!
We woke up early the next day to tour the NBC Studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The tour lasted an hour and we got to see a couple of different sound stages iconic shows are filmed at. We were able to go upstairs to see the Saturday Night Live stages, as well as Jimmy Fallon’s late-night stage. We also got to go upstairs to where the audio engineers work and see all the sound equipment!
We finished the studio tour at 10, so we headed to Katz’s Delicatessen in the Bowery area for lunch. Katz’s is famous for their corned beef and pastrami- they take 30 days to cure their deli meats. Katz’s is also infamous for being featured in the movie “When Harry Met Sally”.
After lunch, we headed towards Battery Park to the 9/11 memorial and museum. We had only planned to spend a couple of hours walking through the 9/11 museum, but we ended up spending 4 hours there because there was so much to see and read. For both of us, 9/11 was our first vivid memory, we could remember being in elementary school and how much it shaped our childhood and years after. We ended up leaving the museum around 4.
We took the 30-minute subway back to our hotel in Lincoln Square, got changed, and got back on the subway for another 30-minute trip headed towards the theater district. We grabbed a bite to eat and headed to Broadway to see “Frozen”! It was fantastic-the hardest part was not singing along with the songs!
The St. James theater, where Frozen had it’s Broadway run
After the show, we had planned on going to the top of the Empire State Building. Unfortunately, the clouds were so low that we couldn’t even see the top of the buildings so we decided to change plans and walk to Grand Central Station to see the famous main terminal. We also walked to the Macy’s featured on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade as well as Rockefeller Center. Each of these places was only about a 15-minute walk from one another! We ended our night back in Times Square around midnight, we stopped at a hot dog cart for a late-night snack and headed back to the hotel for the night!
The next morning, we visited the Top of the Rock. This is at the top of the Rockefeller Center and has excellent skyline views of New York City. To the north, you can see Central Park. To the South, you can see the Empire State Building, One World Trade Center, and Chrysler Tower and if it’s a clear day, you can see the Statue of Liberty!
The South view from the Top of the Rock featuring the Empire State Building, One World Observatory and Statue of Liberty in the background
We finished exploring the Top of the Rock around 10:15 and made our way by Subway to the Brooklyn Bridge. We decided to walk to the other side of the suspension tower and then turned back, but you could walk to Brooklyn across the bridge if you wanted to!
Walking across the Brooklyn bridge from the Manhattan side
We took the subway back to Washington Square Park to see the famous arch, and stopped at Joe’s Pizza, one of New York’s infamous pizza places for a New York-style slice! New York-style pizza is thin crust and giant slices that you fold in half to eat-and Joe’s has quite a few offerings that may change throughout the day.
From there, we headed a bit more East to see the outside of the “Friends” apartment building. There are so many movies and TV shows that have been filmed in New York, and various companies offer tours available where you can see some of the filming locations!
The outside of the apartment building featured on the TV show FRIENDS
We continued East to the High Line, which is just under 1.5 miles of public space built on a historic former elevated railway. There are gardens and art throughout the High Line-so no matter when you go on the High Line, there is always something going on.
View from the High Line
Once we got to the North end of the High Line, we started making our way back West toward the center of Manhattan to see the Flatiron Building.
The Flat Iron Building
We continued North to Central Park and spent the afternoon exploring. Central Park is a large urban park that splits up Manhattan’s neighborhoods. There are many areas within Central Park, each with a different themed section.
For example, the Strawberry Fields area is a memorial dedicated to Beatles member and peace advocate, John Lennon. Bethesda Terrace is another famous gathering area within Central Park. It is one of the most famous attractions within Central Park, so many movies and TV shows have scenes filmed here! One of our favorite things was seeing all the fall colors in the park!
We explored Central Park until we needed to head to La Guardia airport. We were lucky that one of our friends drove us back to La Guardia as the trip is about 35 minutes (pending traffic) via car or about an hour taking a combination of the subway and buses!
One thing we did learn from this trip was to stay in the Times Square/Midtown area. Doing that would have cut down our travel times between locations, and both times we’ve gone back to New York we did this and agree that it works a lot better!
Although it was a fast trip (from landing to take-off, we were in New York for 48 hours!) we packed in SO much! We could see the major highlights of New York that we wanted to see in case we didn’t have the chance to return to New York! Luckily, we’ve been able to go back to New York City multiple times and each time, we’ve been able to take the time to explore new areas and see additional attractions without feeling rushed trying to make the most of our trip!!
