This summer I got the amazing opportunity to spend a week in New York City with my dad, but it didn’t come easily. Like many twenty-something college students, I dream of traveling the world; realistically, I know that I am a broke college student. This meant I had to talk my parents into helping me fund the endeavor. This meant weeks of research and an PowerPoint presentation budgeting the entire trip. After a lot of bargaining, planning, and Googling, here is how my dad and I planned a trip to NYC without breaking the bank.
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The New York Pass is a MUST
This handy little card was a total life saver in the city. You buy the card and it covers over 90 different attractions in the city including must-sees like the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Central Park, and much more. After calculating the cost, my dad and I saved literally hundreds just by using this card instead of buying attractions separately and got to do way more. However, some things do have an extra charge. For example, the pass will get you to the Statue of Liberty, but to go up to the crown you need to have purchased a separate ticket. The pass has a huge variety of options that come with it at no extra cost from sightseeing, double-decker bus rides, bike tours, museums, and walking tours. My personal favorite was the SoHo, Little Italy, and Chinatown tour.
2. You don’t have to empty your wallet to eat.
Okay, just because nearly anyone can tell you NYC has the best food on earth and the BEST pizza in the country, that doesn’t mean you have to pay an arm and a leg for it. In fact, if you are running low on a budget and need cheap eats there are several different pizza shops where you can get two huge slices of cheese pizza and a soda for under $5. At one of the places, I only paid $2 for my entire meal. I also had the best gyro pita of my life for around $6 from a food truck near Wall Street.
3. If you want to stay in the city you are going to pay way too much. Get over it.
Every hotel in NYC is a sham and you will end up paying double what you would pay for the same room anywhere else in the country. If you have been to NYC before, I would recommend staying outside of the island of Manhattan and taking a bus or a subway into town; however, if you have never been to the big apple, I recommend putting the bulk of your budget into your hotel cost. I got my hotel room for way cheaper by going through hotels.com and still paid $205 a night for a tiny room without free wifi but the convenience of being able to walk anywhere I wanted to go and being able to look out my window at the city made it totally worth it.
4. Air fare doesn’t have to be expensive
In fact, I flew Southwest Airlines and still got a super cheap round trip price because I bought my tickets months in advance. The key to cheap airfare is being willing to take the time to compare prices and planning your trip out months in advance. I went to NYC in the end of July and had my plane tickets in March.
5. Ubers and Taxis are overrated
A week long metrocard for the subway is a little over $30 for an entire week and you can get directions on which subways to use through maps on an iPhone or Google Maps. Uber and Taxis both charge way too much and take a ton of unnecessary extra time because of traffic. Plan on buying a metrocard and get ready to work out your legs walking from station to station to save some extra cash.
6. Broadway tickets don’t have to break the bank
Obviously you can’t see Hamilton for less than $300 and 6 months worth of planning, but if you are not picky about where you sit and do not have a specific show in mind, you can get discounted tickets the day of the show from the TKTS booth in Times Square. My dad and I went to the booth the day of the show and got tickets for 50% off.