Been right there, if you count driving to and from JFK through the city without stopping as “there”. We did drive through 4 of the 5 boroughs (missing Manhatten) though.
This is funny, because one of my sisters lives in NYC and another one in NoLa.
But I have not been to NYC nearly as often, only 3 times and the first two times I was a very young child. I don’t particularly care for big cities. I went to a family gathering there to make my sister happy. 
Rest assured that we had planned to go to NYC prior to this poll and you have not shamed me into going. 
We only get two home leaves a year and we have to parcel them out between family, doctor visits, etc. so sometimes “rest and relaxation” has to get deferred.
By the way, I *have * been to New Orleans and voted in your other poll. Were it not for all the Hurricanes I consumed at Pat O’Brien’s, I would remember more of the visit :p.
Several times I visited my high school friend Dan while he was attending Columbia U., and then I went to his wedding in Brooklyn more than a decade ago. Don’t think I’ve been within NYC city limits since.
I fail to see the reasoning behind these polls. Is the OP looking for the most popular US vacation spots. Or is he after the largest Metropolitan areas? Anyone who lives within 100 miles from a major US city has likely been there at least once. There seems to be no rationale behind the mileage ranges.
Chances are, if you have been to NYC and don’t live there, you’ve gone there on vacation. If you’ve gone to see relatives in the metro area, you’ve probably also gone to NYC. In fact, given the highway structure, most destinations in the Northeast require that you pass through NYC unless you’re coming from Canada, Northern NY or Pennsylvania.
Similarly, very few people are just wandering through lower Louisiana unless they plan to visit New Orleans or live there. There just aren’t that many reasons to be there otherwise.
These are largely binary questions. Have you been to NYC/New Orleans or not? It matters little if you were 200 miles away because you drove US20 from Dallas to Montgomery. Or you had a layover at Atlanta airport.
Participation is mandatory!
Fun is optional!
Is it safe to assume that you didn’t bother to read the OP?
Went upstate to visit friends a couple of times, and once one of them invited us to spend part of the weekend in the city with him. He neglected to mention that he lived on Park until he came to retrieve us at Penn Station. That was… a little eye-popping for me, having grown up in suburban Arizona.
Then we went to visit some obscure bookstores somewhere in Manhattan. It took me about ten minutes to start walking like the natives, which apparently means charging around like I owned the place.
I’ll go back and do it again someday. 
The closest I have been is eastern Illinois (a few miles east of St. Louis), which is over 800 miles away.
I understand that I lived a few years there with my family as a small child, but don’t have any reliable memories of it.
We were in New York City just a few weeks ago. Wonderful place. But I still ain’t votin’ in no public poll.
I’ve never been to the northern hemisphere. In fact the entire diameter of all my movements is barely 5000km / 3000 miles.
No, it is not safe. That makes it all the more ridiculous, and strengthens my original question. What reason would you have for being 100 miles from Las Vegas unless you were going there or lived there? It’s deset. You don’t casually wander through the desert on a lark. Did you read MY post?
Chicago. You have the Chicago metro area and you have the travel destination. Other than living there or going there for business/pleasure, what difference does it make that I’ve been to Indianapolis 185 miles away? There are hundreds of reasons to be 100-500 miles away from a given city and none of them are relevant to the existence of the city.
If the question is “What are your favorite destinations?” or “Have you been to X”? then ask that and don’t ramble around collecting informnation that has no relevance to anything.
This is a water ride; you will get wet.
I had to giggle at this. Who are you to tell the OP what he can post? Who cares what he posts anyway? If you don’t like the thread, don’t read it.
I’m rather ashamed to say that Virginia Beach, VA is less than 500 miles from that festering pile of spent semen that is “New York City.”
Lived there for about four years.
The real surprise to me is how relatively close these polls have been. At this writing 86% of respondents have been to NYC, 71% to New Orleans. 15 percentage points is a big gap, but as others have mentioned, New York is a place you’re much, much more likely to incidentally go to than New Orleans - it’s a transportation hub, it has a much bigger population, many more people live near it. If you’re coming from Europe, there’s a good chance that’s the city you’ll fly into. Years before I moved to New York I’d been there any number of times for various reasons, even when I wasn’t living in the mid-Atlantic. The one time I’ve been to New Orleans, by contrast, was specifically to visit it.
I had to giggle at this. Who are you to tell me what I can post? What do you care what I post anyway? If it doesn’t make sense to you , ignore it.