I decided to take a New York trip because I’ve always wanted to dance on the east coast.
It was a bucket list trip for me and I had the chance to make it happen when we ended up being home long enough to go.
When I initially looked up the flights, a round trip was around 9 meeeeelion dollars. In reality, I checked my Southwest Rapid Rewards account to see if I had enough points for the trip.
Turns out, since I’ve been hustling to get the companion pass, I had about 70,000 points at my disposal, which was more than enough to cover a round trip.
Flights to New York
I typically like booking flights 5 – 8 weeks in advance because the price point is typically the lowest then. When you get into the under 30-day mark, you can be at the mercy of fluctuating prices. Sometimes, the fluctuations work in your favor, however. For this trip, the flights ended up dropping nearly $90 at the 3 week mark, bringing the total price to right under $300.
This is a fairly decent price for a round trip, nonstop flight to New York city in the summer. (This roughly translates to a little over 20,000 rapid rewards points.) When choosing your flight, I’d recommend flying in during the day, as the city can be a bit overwhelming at night, especially if you’ve never visited. And double especially if you are traveling solo, like I was.
Getting from LaGuardia to Manhattan
I did a ton of research trying to figure out what’s the best way to get from the LGA airport to the city. Since Southwest is my airline of choice, flying into the LGA was a no-brainer. It also happens to be closer to the city compared to JFK.
Unlike JFK however, LaGuardia doesn’t have a flat rate taxi contract, so you could be stuck paying surcharges during rush hour traffic. The pros and cons of ride share apps vs. taxis include a long list, but the gist is, taxis can have the potential to be cheaper, depending on the time of day.
Ubers and Lyfts offer the benefit of letting you know how much you’ll be paying on the front end. My taxi ended up coming in cheaper with tip included at $80 during rush hour traffic on a Friday, compared to $75 – $90 including tip for a ride share service.
You of course could use the bus and subway system, which would only cost $2.75 for one ticket that is good for transfers for the first two hours after purchase. This route does take upwards of an hour – an hour and a half, however vs. 15 – 45 minutes to drive depending on traffic.
What to Do in New York City with only 1 Day to Spend?
Okay, now to the point of all this. If you only had a few hours to run around in New York City, here are some ideas to get you started. I’d suggest visiting:
- NoHo
- West Village
- SoHo
- Brooklyn
Not only are these neighborhoods within walking distance of each other (aside from Brooklyn), but they offer a wide range of eateries, coffee shops, parks, and shopping.
If you only had limited time, I’d suggest picking a couple of main areas in the city and sticking to those vs. trying to spend all your time commuting from Uptown to Brooklyn just to say you visited. On my trip, I ended up starting at the Penn Station train station and walking to several coffee shops, NoHo, the West Village, and then ending by taking an uber to Brooklyn before catching my flight.
Stumptown Coffee New York Ace Hotel
Order the vanilla latte. I’m not just saying that to be basic. Stumptown is an in-house roaster and also makes their own vanilla syrup. Be prepared to pay $7+ dollars for the 8 oz. coffee.
It is a delicious beverage that has a nice full-bodied flavor. And is only less than a mile (or a 10 – 12 min walk) from Penn Station. The shop is part of the Ace Hotel and doesn’t have a ton of seating. It is the perfect spot to grab a great cup of coffee and continue your walking tour.
Madison Square Park
I stumbled on Madison Square Park on my walk to the next coffee shop I had to visit during my short time running around New York City. The park is a haven for dog walkers and morning exercisers who all wish to get a glimpse of nature before starting their day. It’s a short little detour to sit and finish sipping your coffee.
Devocion Coffee
Devocion Coffee specializes in serving up carefully sourced and roasted Colombian coffee. They do not serve sweetened vanilla syrup, but do have a couple of simple syrups and some sort of honey reduced syrup for add to your drink if you so choose to have a sweet flare.
This coffee shop got rave reviews, but sadly my iced latte order fell flat for me. I knew I should have gone the cappuccino route or a regular hot latte route, but it was already too hot at that point for me to want hot coffee. The flavor was so light weight and not overdone, but I ended up tasting the milk more than the coffee.
Levain NoHo
From Devocion, I headed to get one of the best chocolate chip cookies in all the city at Levain bakery in NoHo. NoHo stands for north of Houston street, which is a large street that traverses the city from left to right.
Sadly, I’d say the Levain cookie that cost me a solid $5 was overrated. The amount of chocolate in the cookie was good, but the flavor of the cookie kind of fell off for me. I felt like it needed some vanilla or salt or something. The consistency was good, with a hard crust and only a soft inside, but the size and shape honestly gave me muffin vibes.
Jack’s Wife Freda – West Village
Next up on our walking tour is Jack’s Wife Freda restaurant. The spot is a happening place in SoHo and the West Village and I had to stop by to see what all the fuss was about. Even New York City YouTuber Casey Neistat and his wife Candace can’t stay away.
I ordered the Egg Shakshuka, which has two poached eggs bathed in some green chili and cilantro sauce served with lightly toasted bread. I was told this dish was rather spicy, but it turned out tasting pretty bland to my Louisiana pallet. I enjoyed the service and ambiance though.
SoHo
SoHo is not a far walk from Jack’s Wife Freda and if you’d prefer to partake at the most popular location, the SoHo brunch spot was really packed when I passed on a Monday morning.
SoHo is packed with every type of shop you’d imagine, from Chanel to jewelry shops, to clothing stores like Aritzia. SoHo is the place to go for overpriced shopping, but just make sure you can get there at 11 am and be prepared for some shops to open even later than that.
I didn’t have enough time to explore many of the shops in SoHo and only ran into one store that happened to be open. The area is full of eager shoppers wearing their best, most comfortable outfits, which makes for good people watching. The neighborhood itself is very pretty.
DUMBO Brooklyn – Butler Coffee
DUMBO stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass and serves up excellent views of the city’s two most popular bridges. Specifically the Water Street and Washington Street intersection is one of the most instagrammed spots of all time, which a beautiful view of the Manhattan bridge framed by two lovely red brick buildings and even a peep of the empire state building between the arch of the bridge.
This area is a huge tourist stop and even on a Monday morning, it was packed with people taking thousands of pictures trying to get as few other people in their shots. I’d recommend going just down the street to Butler coffee and grabbing a latte and a baked item that also serves up a nice view of the bridge.
The entire area is rather saturated with tourists, and for good reason. Just be prepared to be one of the herd of photo-takers if you do visit this iconic area of Brooklyn.
