First-Timers Guide to New York
For those of you who aren't following me on Instagram, (and why aren't you?!), I went on holiday with my family to New York last week for the first time and I completely and utterly have fallen in love with the gorgeous city. I really didn't know what to expect or what it would be like as I'd only been to America twice before on skiing trips to Boston with school and we didn't experience America outside the ski resort and the hotel. There were some things that I kept going, 'Oh that's the same as London' and there were some things where I was thinking 'This would never happen in London!' but what I wish I had before I went is a few tips and tricks to look out for if it's your first time in the Big Apple, so if you're heading out there for Camp this year, hopefully this list will give you a little bit of help with what it's like and what to expect, and how to have the best days off in New York!
1. Toilet Doors Might As Well Be See-Through
For some unknown reason, the toilet door designers in New York were clearly working with limited materials as none of them cover the ceiling to floor like English ones, and every single one has gaps down each side of the door. Once you accept that privacy in the toilet is a thing of the past and everyone is in the same boat, it won't be such a shock when you have a quick toilet stop in public restrooms. But I was so excited to be back in England where the toilet doors are the full width and height of the gap they are meant to be covering! (I'm sure this isn't for every toilet, but for 90% of public restrooms it's real!)
2. Road Layouts
New York is based on a grid system and once you understand that Avenues are the very long roads that run North and South, and Streets are numbered and generally run East and West, you'll navigate round the city like a pro in no time. So if you're looking for 57th Street and 6th Avenue, as long as you find 6th Avenue, you can follow it uptown or downtown to find 57th as they're all in numerical order. This means that there are billions of intersections and we realised while we were there that nobody knows what a roundabout is! We asked a few different New Yorkers and discovered that there is one, maybe two, 'circular intersections' in the whole of Manhattan but 'roundabout' is a foreign idea.
3. Pedestrian Crossings
Because of all the intersections, this does mean that every block you walk, you'll be stopped so it makes walking anywhere quickly very stunted. All of their pedestrian crossings are on a continuous loop expecting people to cross so there aren't any buttons to press and wait for like in the UK, just wait for the white man-shaped light to show and you're free to cross. Or stand two meters into the middle of the road with the traffic until you can cross like the New Yorkers do because pavements (sidewalks) are overrated. Be aware that just because the light says you can walk, it doesn't mean that cars won't be trying to pass, but as you have right of way, they'll stop for you. It can be a bit scary at first, but we didn't see a single pedestrian get hit in New York so their system does seem to work.
4. Hailing A Cab
One of the most famous traditions of this beautiful city is waving your arm in the air to hail a taxi when you see one driving past you. The trick is to confidently stick your arm out so the taxi notices you, but only if the lights on the top of the sign are on, meaning they don't already have a passenger. Also, there is a shift changeover at approximately 5pm, so in the rush hour there are very limited cabs available so bear this in mind and try to plan your taxi needs avoiding early evening times. Of course, you can always order an Uber, which is a much easier way to ensure you'll definitely get a ride when you need one, and they'll come directly to where you put the pick up point. Just make sure you zoom into the map to put the pick up point on the correct side of the road or your Uber driver won't be very happy with you, speaking from experience...
5. Driving in New York
Once you get in a cab, you'll begin to experience the intensity of driving in a city where it seems every driver is a wannabe racer, but gets stopped by a red light every 30 seconds. We had Uber drivers who would dangerously overtake, and undertake, everything and anything, and ones who used their horns more times in one journey than all four of us passengers had used in our whole driving history combined. At least that's what we thought, until we met Andre, who pointed out that that isn't the way most people drive in New York and he was sorry we had experienced bad Uber drivers. Andre was one of our New York highlights. 5 stars for you, Andre.
6. Queuing
I'm not sure why it was such a revelation to us that we had to do a lot of queuing in New York. It can be avoided some of the time if you're savvy with your itinerary, but we were kind of deciding as we went along a lot of the time, and ended up arriving everywhere in peak times. If you want to visit the Statue of Liberty, for example, go the day before and queue to purchase tickets, then arrive at 9am the next day and although there may still be a little queue, it'll be 99% shorter than it was the day before, and once you're crammed through the cattle call-like security, there is actually a surprisingly uncrowded ferry to take you to Liberty Island. This goes for most of the attractions, arriving early in the day with pre-purchased tickets allows you to sail right past the long line of people who just weren't as organised, sucks to be them, right? This goes for everything except Starbucks. There will always be always be a queue at Starbucks.
7. Behind The Times
I thought New York would be up to date and even ahead of the game in terms of technology and recent trends, but they don't even take contactless payments yet... I know, right?! And considering how popular veganism is in the UK, you'd think there would be vegan options in restaurants but nope! Sometimes there is only one vegetarian option available, usually a fake meat burger. Luckily, me and my sister were happy to not be so strict whilst on holiday, but no Veggie Burgers in any McDonald's was a step too far. McDonald's do offer All-Day-Breakfast though, so hash browns for dinner is always an option, and $1 for any size fizzy drink did mean my low energy levels from the lack of Veggie Burgers was replaced by caffeine and sugar, but vegetables in New York that weren't on pizza were few and far between. We were also excited by the food carts lined up along every single street offering Falafel Wraps, but were bitterly disappointed when we finally bought some and they tasted like dirt. Be warned.
I literally had the best week ever in New York and hopefully some of the lessons I learnt last week can help you to have the best time if you ever find yourself being a tourist in NYC. If your camp is in the state of New York and you get to spend your days visiting the city, get in touch and I'll give you some restaurant recommendations or the best tourist attractions to make the most of your time while you're there. I am so sad to now be back in England but it does now mean that the countdown to my Camp is officially on, and even though my camp isn't in New York, I am so excited to be back in the beautiful Unites States in just 6 weeks time. If you're heading to camp this year, be sure to subscribe to my blog so you don't miss all my camp preparations and tips to becoming the best Counselor you can be!
Have a wonderful Sunday and I'll see you in the next blog post!
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| I agree, Buzzfeed! |
1. Toilet Doors Might As Well Be See-Through
For some unknown reason, the toilet door designers in New York were clearly working with limited materials as none of them cover the ceiling to floor like English ones, and every single one has gaps down each side of the door. Once you accept that privacy in the toilet is a thing of the past and everyone is in the same boat, it won't be such a shock when you have a quick toilet stop in public restrooms. But I was so excited to be back in England where the toilet doors are the full width and height of the gap they are meant to be covering! (I'm sure this isn't for every toilet, but for 90% of public restrooms it's real!)
2. Road LayoutsNew York is based on a grid system and once you understand that Avenues are the very long roads that run North and South, and Streets are numbered and generally run East and West, you'll navigate round the city like a pro in no time. So if you're looking for 57th Street and 6th Avenue, as long as you find 6th Avenue, you can follow it uptown or downtown to find 57th as they're all in numerical order. This means that there are billions of intersections and we realised while we were there that nobody knows what a roundabout is! We asked a few different New Yorkers and discovered that there is one, maybe two, 'circular intersections' in the whole of Manhattan but 'roundabout' is a foreign idea.
3. Pedestrian Crossings
Because of all the intersections, this does mean that every block you walk, you'll be stopped so it makes walking anywhere quickly very stunted. All of their pedestrian crossings are on a continuous loop expecting people to cross so there aren't any buttons to press and wait for like in the UK, just wait for the white man-shaped light to show and you're free to cross. Or stand two meters into the middle of the road with the traffic until you can cross like the New Yorkers do because pavements (sidewalks) are overrated. Be aware that just because the light says you can walk, it doesn't mean that cars won't be trying to pass, but as you have right of way, they'll stop for you. It can be a bit scary at first, but we didn't see a single pedestrian get hit in New York so their system does seem to work.
4. Hailing A Cab
One of the most famous traditions of this beautiful city is waving your arm in the air to hail a taxi when you see one driving past you. The trick is to confidently stick your arm out so the taxi notices you, but only if the lights on the top of the sign are on, meaning they don't already have a passenger. Also, there is a shift changeover at approximately 5pm, so in the rush hour there are very limited cabs available so bear this in mind and try to plan your taxi needs avoiding early evening times. Of course, you can always order an Uber, which is a much easier way to ensure you'll definitely get a ride when you need one, and they'll come directly to where you put the pick up point. Just make sure you zoom into the map to put the pick up point on the correct side of the road or your Uber driver won't be very happy with you, speaking from experience...
5. Driving in New York
Once you get in a cab, you'll begin to experience the intensity of driving in a city where it seems every driver is a wannabe racer, but gets stopped by a red light every 30 seconds. We had Uber drivers who would dangerously overtake, and undertake, everything and anything, and ones who used their horns more times in one journey than all four of us passengers had used in our whole driving history combined. At least that's what we thought, until we met Andre, who pointed out that that isn't the way most people drive in New York and he was sorry we had experienced bad Uber drivers. Andre was one of our New York highlights. 5 stars for you, Andre.
6. Queuing
I'm not sure why it was such a revelation to us that we had to do a lot of queuing in New York. It can be avoided some of the time if you're savvy with your itinerary, but we were kind of deciding as we went along a lot of the time, and ended up arriving everywhere in peak times. If you want to visit the Statue of Liberty, for example, go the day before and queue to purchase tickets, then arrive at 9am the next day and although there may still be a little queue, it'll be 99% shorter than it was the day before, and once you're crammed through the cattle call-like security, there is actually a surprisingly uncrowded ferry to take you to Liberty Island. This goes for most of the attractions, arriving early in the day with pre-purchased tickets allows you to sail right past the long line of people who just weren't as organised, sucks to be them, right? This goes for everything except Starbucks. There will always be always be a queue at Starbucks.
7. Behind The Times
I thought New York would be up to date and even ahead of the game in terms of technology and recent trends, but they don't even take contactless payments yet... I know, right?! And considering how popular veganism is in the UK, you'd think there would be vegan options in restaurants but nope! Sometimes there is only one vegetarian option available, usually a fake meat burger. Luckily, me and my sister were happy to not be so strict whilst on holiday, but no Veggie Burgers in any McDonald's was a step too far. McDonald's do offer All-Day-Breakfast though, so hash browns for dinner is always an option, and $1 for any size fizzy drink did mean my low energy levels from the lack of Veggie Burgers was replaced by caffeine and sugar, but vegetables in New York that weren't on pizza were few and far between. We were also excited by the food carts lined up along every single street offering Falafel Wraps, but were bitterly disappointed when we finally bought some and they tasted like dirt. Be warned.
I literally had the best week ever in New York and hopefully some of the lessons I learnt last week can help you to have the best time if you ever find yourself being a tourist in NYC. If your camp is in the state of New York and you get to spend your days visiting the city, get in touch and I'll give you some restaurant recommendations or the best tourist attractions to make the most of your time while you're there. I am so sad to now be back in England but it does now mean that the countdown to my Camp is officially on, and even though my camp isn't in New York, I am so excited to be back in the beautiful Unites States in just 6 weeks time. If you're heading to camp this year, be sure to subscribe to my blog so you don't miss all my camp preparations and tips to becoming the best Counselor you can be!
Have a wonderful Sunday and I'll see you in the next blog post!
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