Itineraries

How these days work

Each day on this page keeps to one part of the island, so that you spend your time looking rather than traveling. The sights are close together within each cluster, and most of the walking follows the grid, so a day's stops are usually a short walk or a single subway ride apart. The five days are written to be taken in order, but any of them can stand alone, and you can swap them to suit the weather: the museum day is the one to keep for rain.

Two things need booking before you arrive: the Statue of Liberty ferry, and a deck for sunset. Booking ahead explains both. Everything else on these routes is free to walk into or can be decided on the day.

If you have one day

With a single day, stay in Midtown and Lower Manhattan and see the two faces of the city. Start early at the Battery and take the first ferry you can book to the Statue of Liberty; if the lines are too long or the tickets are gone, ride the free Staten Island Ferry instead for the view of the statue and the harbor. Walk up Broadway past Trinity Church to the 9/11 Memorial, and take the subway to Grand Central.

From Grand Central, follow the homepage walk west along 42nd Street, past the Chrysler Building, the library and Bryant Park, to Times Square, then north up Fifth Avenue to Rockefeller Center and the corner of Central Park at 59th Street. End the day on a deck at sunset, and return to Times Square after dark to see it lit.

If you have three days

Take the first three days as written. The first covers the harbor, the old Dutch city and the Financial District, ending with a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge toward Brooklyn and back, or on into Dumbo. The second is Midtown along 42nd Street, from Grand Central to Times Square, with Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick's Cathedral and the Top of the Rock at the end of the day.

The third is Central Park and the museums. Enter at Grand Army Plaza, walk up the Mall to Bethesda Terrace, cross Bow Bridge and follow the paths through the Ramble to Belvedere Castle, then leave the park on the east side for the Met. Choose two or three departments there rather than trying to see them all, and if you still have energy, walk up Museum Mile to the Guggenheim.

If you have five days

The fourth day is the West Side and the Village. Start at Hudson Yards and walk the High Line south to Gansevoort Street, stop at Chelsea Market, then wander through the West Village and Greenwich Village to Washington Square. Walk up Fifth Avenue to Madison Square and the Flatiron Building, and finish at the Empire State Building, whose 86th-floor terrace is at its most spectacular at night.

The fifth day goes to the top of the island and back. Take the subway north to Fort Tryon Park for the Cloisters and its gardens over the Hudson; your ticket from the Met covers it if you visit on the same day. Come back down to Chinatown and the Lower East Side for the afternoon: Mott Street, Doyers Street, Columbus Park, Orchard Street and the Tenement Museum, with dinner in Chinatown or a pastrami sandwich at Katz's.

With more time

A sixth or seventh day is best spent off the island. Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to Dumbo and Brooklyn Bridge Park, spend a summer day at Coney Island, visit the Bronx Zoo and the New York Botanical Garden, or ride Metro-North up the Hudson to Beacon. Day trips describes each one.

Or slow down and see the neighborhoods: Harlem and the Apollo Theater on 125th Street, the Upper West Side and Riverside Park, SoHo's cast-iron streets. Where to stay sketches each of them.

Getting between the stops

Within each day, walk. The distances on these routes are short, and walking is how you see the city. Between the clusters, take the subway: the Lexington Avenue line runs from the Financial District to Grand Central and on up the East Side toward the museums, and the Seventh Avenue and Broadway lines run from the southern tip to Times Square and the Upper West Side. Getting around explains how to ride.

Use the grid to judge distances: twenty blocks up or down the island make a mile, and the long blocks between the avenues take several minutes each. The grid explains how to read it.

With children

Children tend to love the parts of Manhattan that adults rush past. In Central Park there are twenty-one playgrounds, the carousel, the statues of Alice in Wonderland at Conservatory Water and of Balto the sled dog near East 66th Street, and the woods and rocks of the Ramble to explore. The ferry to the Statue of Liberty is an adventure in itself, and so is the aerial tram to Roosevelt Island.

On the Upper West Side, the American Museum of Natural History is a day's outing on its own, and in the Bronx the zoo is one of the largest in the country. Keep the days shorter, plan a playground or a park into every afternoon, and use the subway for any distance longer than a few blocks.

On a rainy day

Rain is no reason to lose a day. Move the museum day forward and spend it at the Met, where the Temple of Dendur and the Egyptian galleries alone can fill a morning. Grand Central and the New York Public Library stand close together on 42nd Street, a short dash apart under an umbrella, and the Cloisters is at its most atmospheric under gray skies.

Evenings and rest

Manhattan is at its best in the evening, so leave room for it. See a Broadway show, walk through Times Square after dark, go up a deck for sunset, or eat your way through Chinatown or the Village. Eating and drinking suggests what to try.

Build in rest, too. Most visitors walk far more here than they expect, and a slow hour in Bryant Park, on a bench in Central Park or on the lawns of the High Line keeps the days from blurring together. Check the opening days and hours of the museums before you fix the order of the days, since they change.