Whether you are a city dweller or a country girl (or boy) the one place you should visit before you die is New York City. The most populous city in the United States, New York is the city that never sleeps and can be an amazing experience.
Pick the best time of year for you to visit, but set aside time to spend in Manhattan. The island of Manhattan is the heart of New York City and, in addition to having the most skyscrapers in any city in the United States, it is also home to a multitude of museums, art galleries, parks, shopping, restaurants and iconic landmarks.
Seeing it all
A visit to New York is not complete without visiting Manhattan, and a visit to Manhattan is not complete without visiting the following sites:
The Statue of Liberty
It doesn’t get any more iconic than this. Everyone has seen the pictures and knows the history of America’s most iconic sculpture, but visiting it brings the sheer scale and beauty of this French designed statue into sharp focus. The only way to visit Liberty Island and the statue is by ferry, so book your tour early and set aside enough time to wander the island and see everything you want.
The Met
More accurately, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is, according to their website, “one of the world’s largest and finest art museums.” With millions of works of arts spanning 500 years, the Met has something for every art lover, including, Jacque Louis David’s The Death of Socrates, Picasso’s Gertrude Stein, Monet’s The Water Lily Pond, and many other paintings and sculpture. The Met is only one of some truly great art museums in New York. The Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum give visitors to Manhattan a wealth of art choices.
Times Square
A visit to Times Square is a must for two specific reasons. The first is people watching, Times Square is like a magnet for attracting colorful characters from across the city. It is host to over 350,000 visitors per day. The second reason is that Times Square is in the heart of the theater district and, when visiting New York City, you should see a show, visit Rockefeller Center and the Radio City Music Hall.
American Museum of Natural History
Although the attractions don’t come to life at night, the American Museum of Natural History has a lot to offer its visitors. With permanent and traveling exhibitions featuring dinosaurs, humpback whales, mummies and other curiosities, the AMNH is one of the most important museums in the United States and well worth the visit for adults and children.
Getting around Manhattan can be problematic. Driving is possible, but you will spend as much time in traffic or looking for parking spaces as you will be visiting the sites. Public transportation and taxis can be unreliable or expensive. For a stress-free visit to Manhattan, GoNYTours.com tour bus can be the answer to your concerns. Inclusive packages with regular transportation between Manhattan’s most visited attractions without worrying about parking or navigating the streets of New York makes them attractive to many visitors to the city.
Obviously, we can only begin to scratch the surface of the sites to see in Manhattan. The outer boroughs of New York like Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island and the others have their own attractions. Visiting New York without a quick trip to Coney Island for a hot dog is nearly criminal, but there are only so many hours in the day.