DIY Travel Tips: NYC on a Budget

We spent the Christmas holiday in New York City. It was the best trip of our lives (so far)! If you’d like to read about our experience and see photos, that post will be linked here when I have it ready. For some reason, writing about the logistics of travel flowed out of me before stories from the trip did! We learned A LOT of traveling hacks along the way and I wanted to share them here in case they could be useful to anyone planning a trip to New York City (especially if you’re on a budget).

I’m just going to dive right in covering the resources we used from the beginning of our trip to the end.

• Park, Sleep, Fly – Paying for parking at the airport can be brutal. Especially if you’re away for a week or more. The night before our flight we stayed at a hotel in Des Moines a mile from the airport that allowed us to park our car there while we were gone and provided a shuttle to and from the airport. Total cost was $145. A good deal because we were getting three for one, technically, with the hotel, parking, and shuttle.
• MTA Metro Card – Disclaimer before I begin: We only needed to use the subways in Manhattan, not the buses. According to a very nice woman who could tell I “wasn’t from around there,” if you take an MTA bus in Manhattan, you are required to have some sort of receipt to accompany your Metro Card. As we were exiting the airport, we bought 7-day, unlimited ride Metro Cards for $33 each. Metro Cards get you on any subway or bus on the island of Manhattan. This is the cheapest way to go if you’re comfortable with public transportation. We ended up LOVING the subway and it was one of the things we mourned when we took our last ride.
• NYC Transit App – How did we figure out how to operate the subway on our first day in NYC? The NYC Transit App. This was a LIFESAVER for us. We depended on it every single day. You put in your destination and it gives you several different route options including subway only, bus only, or a mix. It shows you on the map how to get to the terminal from wherever you are AND THEN shows you what stops to wait through so you know when to get off. There is even an alarm feature that will go off at your stop if you aren’t paying attention. Full disclosure – I have not deleted this app from my phone. I often get alerts of delays on the subway. It makes me both sad and happy. Sad I’m too poor to live there. Happy I got to visit.
• NJ Transit App – From the NYC Transit App – we hopped over to the NJ Transit App since we were staying in New Jersey. From the airport, we rode a bus (not tied to MTA – it was an airport shuttle type deal) to the subway which took us to the Times Square/42nd St. bus depot. Before we boarded the bus for our Airbnb, we purchased 10 NJ Transit tickets. Buying in bulk was much cheaper. They do accept cash on some of the buses if you don’t have a ticket – we never risked it – we always made sure we had enough. The app allowed us to see when the buses we could ride were arriving both at the depot and at our Airbnb. Very helpful in the morning so we knew when we had to be ready to leave our apartment. The route we needed had three different line numbers, so we had more bus options to ride = less wait time.
• Airbnb – I’m a HUGE Airbnb fan. It’s where I look first when I am planning a trip. It normally saves us money and we always end up charmed by wherever we stay. We found a place in North Bergen, New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan. Three of the biggest perks were:

1. The cost was significantly cheaper than staying in the city.
2. The NJ Transit bus line that takes you to the Times Square/42nd St. bus depot in Manhattan had pick-up/drop-off terminals literally just outside our door.
3. The view of the NYC skyline in both the day and nighttime were STUNNING!

• Airbnb cont'd: North Bergen has a safe, small town feel. There were many things we needed within walking distance including restaurants, shops, and laundromats (because we’re freaks and love to do our laundry before we leave). Highly recommend that area. Our host was wonderful and was responsive around the clock. Even when we were checking out to head to the airport at 5:30 a.m. for a mid-morning flight because I’m a complete psycho.
• Knopf Mapguides: New York: The City in Section-by-Section Maps – This is a book we purchased weeks before our trip so we could start thinking about the places we really wanted to go. We said we’d get a day-by-day itinerary nailed down before we left, but that didn’t happen. And you know what, that was totally OK. Going with the flow was better. That way if a certain attraction didn’t work out one day, we flexed to another. If we were tired, we chose a more relaxed plan. It allowed for a more pleasant experience all around. The best part about this book is that it includes two really important things: 1) complete maps of each major Manhattan neighborhood; 2) complete maps of both the MTA bus and subway routes. Searching for things online is fine, but there’s something really nice about being able to look at a guide like this. It fits perfectly in a small purse. It was small enough it could even fit in Joel’s back pocket. You can also go through the guide and mark all of the places you go so you have a little memory book. They make these books for a lot of other destinations, I plan to purchase for future trips we take.
• CityPass – We obviously wanted to visit landmarks on our trip. The costs can add up super quick if you want to go to several in one trip. I read a lot of really good reviews about CityPass online (and I actually learned about the NYC Transit app in the comments of their Facebook page) so felt super comfortable purchasing. Seemed too good to be true, but this is one thing that was truly a good resource! We purchased the “C3” which got us into three major attractions from their list (which is a really good list). We chose the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met). Our tickets were digital – a QR Code that was scanned at each attraction. They each knew just what it was, no issues. There are extra perks that come with purchasing through CityPass. Make sure you read the fine print so you get your audio tour supplies, etc. You may also have to check-in at a different place than everyone else, but they’re very clear about where to go.
• Statue of Liberty disclaimer: This is so sad, but it’s real…DO NOT BUY TICKETS FROM PEOPLE ON THE SIDEWALKS/STREETS AS YOU APPROACH THE STATUE OF LIBERTY. We got swooped off to the side by someone who looked official and said he could help us bypass the line if we gave him X amount of dollars. It was tempting because the line was extremely long (we ended up coming back early the next day). We said, “No,” because we’re suspicious of everything and it didn’t feel right. Trust your gut. Websites, signage, everything will say, “PURCHASE TICKETS AT THE CASTLE CLINTON NATIONAL MONUMENT.” Follow this instruction. Even if you get the CityPass – you still have to go to the monument ticketing windows.
• Uber, Uber Eats – Amazingly, because we figured out public transportation, we only used Uber once to get to the airport for our flight out of NYC. I wanted reliable transportation to the airport because as I mentioned before I’m a psycho about arriving early so we don’t miss our flight. We had never used Uber Eats before and are so glad we live in the country where Uber Eats doesn’t come (I hope – I refuse to check) because we used it WAY TOO MUCH. We didn’t have a car and were normally home by dinner, so ordered in several nights. Highly recommend – but don’t abuse it. Our waistlines would be f*cked if we continued down the path we were on!

I hope this little guide helps you on your trip to New York City! I wish something like this had existed before we went on our trip. This is just a tiny glimpse into the hacks out there, but I feel that these are tips that will definitely help save you money if, like us, you are a budget traveler. Enjoy your trip and let me know if you use any of these ideas or if you have more NYC travel tips I should share (or could use in the future).