So I’m going to New York (first time!) in April to see a favorite band. I haven’t been on a trip by myself before and wonder if you have any travel tips or ways to save money.
I’ve been looking at prices on travel sites all afternoon and I’m seeing a lot of $1000+ total for the four nights I plan to be there. Is that a typical rate for a hotel room around the weekend? I don’t mind cheap hotels, and if you can recommend anything more affordable than $200/night, that’ll be awesome.
I’ve been looking at hotels in Manhattan for a one night stay around the beginning of April too. Seeing nothing lower than $200, I wondered if that was the norm. It looks like it is; to give you a frame of reference even staying at the YMCA in Queens is $120/night. (You don’t want to stay there, it’s just an example.)
If you want to stay in the city, you’ll probably have to spend $200/night. You probably won’t be spending a ton of time in your room anyway, but you want to stay somewhere clean and safe.
Another possible alternative – if you aren’t stuck on the idea of staying in the city – is to get a hotel across the river in Jersey City. There are plenty of hotels just across the river, and you can take the PATH train from Newport/Pavonia, Hoboken, or Journal Square, and be in the city pretty quickly. I haven’t been there in years, so I don’t know what it’s like now. It wasn’t really unsafe, but I don’t know if that has changed.
First of all keep in mind according to Hospitality Magazine, NYC hotels in Manhattan and Brooklyn have a bed bug rate of about 25%. In other words about 25% of the hotels have had an outbreak of bed bugs in the last since 2005.
Also all sorts of hotels have been effected from Helmsley and Trump’s hotels to the lower ranked Days Inns and such.
So you want to make sure you don’t bring any home with you.
You didn’t ask but I’ll mention things to do
That said, I love NYC and there’s a lot ot see, the NBC tour near to Radio City is fun. The Staten Island Ferry is the best. AND IT’S FREE. The Intrepid Museum and the Guggenheim are fun. A trip up the Empire State Building after dark is breathtaking and a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge is fun too.
The Gray Line Bus Tours are an excellent way to see it. The great thing is you can get off the bus when you want, look around and wait for the next bus to continue your tour. The night tour is great. The downtown day tour is very slow, as you’ll be in the middle of all the traffic.