Manhattan, NYC

I have been to New York 5 times or more, but every time I have stayed around the same area in Manhattan. I think it would be called Midtown, which is basically between the 5th and 8th Street, from around 33rd St. to 50th St., so between Madison Square Garden and Rockefeller Center. That’s the area where I tend to walk around the most, and what is probably the area where you would want to walk too if you were to visit New York. There are sights and lots of interesting things to see outside of this area too, and usually I take subway to go somewhere further, for example to the Brooklyn Bridge or Soho. 

Couple of first times I visited New York, (the first time was 2012 and the 2nd time 2015), I basically walked from World Trade Center to Central Park, which Google Maps tells you to be 1,5h walk and 8km / 4,5miles, but of course it took the whole day because stopping to so many places to take pictures, or to shop and eat. That’s how you get to see the most interesting places though, you kind of can't know what you miss if you take subway everywhere. Past couple of times I haven’t had endless amount of time though, so I rather took subway than walked. Subway is really easy, because Google Maps shows you where to walk, which train to take, how many stops there are etc, so you can’t really get lost. If you want the easy way, there are multiple different bus companies taking you around the city to see the most well known sights, if you don't want to do that by yourself. The most interesting places for me to see and the sights I would recommend for you to go to are:

 Times Square

 Brooklyn Bridge

 Manhattan Bridge

 Central park

 Empire State Building

Soho

Madison Square Garden

 Rockefeller Center

Broadway

Statue of Liberty

 World Trade Center

New York is really not that expensive, when it comes for example to the flights. From Finland you can get flights as cheap as 300-500e. Depending what kind of hotel you want, but I have got pretty decent ones for just like 50e or more. Getting to Manhattan from JFK airport is pretty easy with public transportation if you want to save money. I think the taxi or even an Uber from the airport to the city is between 50 and 80e. The train is around 10e, depending what time of the day you are traveling. From JFK you just take the air train, which is free, to Jamaica Station, from where you buy a ticket to Penn Station. I have always used LIRR but you can take the subway too which is even cheaper, but takes a bit longer. I traveled late at night when it was cheaper, so I think it cost about 7 dollars from the airport to Manhattan. 

When it comes to traveling inside the city, sometimes it might be even better to take the yellow cab in Manhattan than Uber. We heard the Ubers might be more expensive sometimes, and they do a lot of canceling the trips to get the cancellation fee when they feel lazy and want to avoid the traffic. The subway is even cheaper of course, and sometimes faster too. Buying a day ticket is probably the best if you are planning to make multiple trips, because one-way trip is about 3 dollars and a day pass not much more than that. 

For shopping in New York I would recommend the area I mentioned earlier where I mostly walk around, but also in Soho there is a shopping street where I have went couple of times, between Prince St. Station and Canal St. Station on Broadway. There are pretty good shops, but also when you walk around the streets on this area, you will find more shops, they just haven’t been the kind of where I would desire to go to. There are malls and outlets outside of Manhattan, for example in New Jersey and closer to JFK. I usually prefer malls, where you find all the shops in one place, and especially during winter you get to avoid walking outside.

Visiting New York doesn’t have to be a long trip really. Just few days is usually enough, depending what you’re looking for. I usually get a bit bored after couple of days, but that might be because I haven’t really went out of Manhattan and I have already visited there multiple times. Manhattan area could be explored pretty quick, depending again what you are looking to experience on your holiday.