Our plan for the last day in NYC was… you guessed it, to walk around some more. Since we’re both big Lumineers fans, Josh wanted to walk to the corner of Canal & Bowery. We saved that for Sunday and spent the morning exploring Chinatown, Little Italy and more of SoHo. The neighborhoods were beautiful, the cheap goods were abundant and the food was delicious.
I’ve only stayed in the city twice and both times were for business trips where the hotel were paid for. Once we stayed in a smaller boutique hotel and the other time, a massive modern chain. Both times were in midtown, only a few steps from Grand Central. Since Josh was working part of our last trip, we opted to stay outside of the city closer to his office and take the train. It was less expensive for us, but we couldn’t just run back to the room and change or refuel.
We did a LOT of research before picking a hotel and we even got some quotes from a travel agent who recommended this if we wanted to stay off the beaten path, which we did. Our plan all along was to stay in lower Manhattan just to spend time in some areas of the town we had never seen. I ended up booking it myself through an on-line hotel website and got an even better deal. Now hotels in NYC are never cheap, but the last minute decision coupled with a holiday weekend, saved us several hundred dollars a night. We ended up in a beautiful hotel for much less than I thought we could do it. We stayed at the Tribeca Grand and loved every single minute of it. I said yesterday that we’ll probably try the Soho Grand next time around, but that is more of a neighborhood matter than a direct reflection of the hotel. The room was gorgeous, there were amenities aplenty and the staff went out of their way to take excellent care of us.
Their website also suggested downloading their “GrandLife” app for navigating the neighborhood. You could see restaurants, shops, art galleries and entertainment in the area, along with menus, hours and average wait times. It was a huge help planning dinner every night!
We also swear by the Embark NYC app. It is a great subway/walking map of the city with real time updates to help you navigate the city. I have a friend (hi, friend!!) who loathes the subway system and vows only to cab it in while in New York, but Josh & I love the subway and only hopped a cab to the airport on our last day. We bought a 7 day unlimited metro pass (even though we only stayed for 4 days, it was cheaper than paying by the ride considering how much we used the service) and swiped our cards way too many times. You can pretty much select your starting/stopping point either by address, landmark or subway station and it gives you a list of all available trains in the area and how long until arrive at the station. Once you select your train, it displays walking maps to and from the stations if you aren’t familiar with the area. There isn’t great internet service on the trains, so be sure to know where you’re going before you hop on!
