How to plan a holiday for two to New York from the UK?

I am off to NY this week. First time there and have been planning it for a while now. Budget is key then look what you want to do and how much it will cost. So many things to do either be prepared to spend more than you originally plan to or be happy to miss out on some things. We increased our budget. We dont know when we will go again as we try to holiday somewhere different every year but still wanted to make it a holiday to remember. Top 10 New York City book by Eyewitness Travel is a good start. Lists everything from bars, restaurants, shops, sights, etc.

Would check w/ a local agencies that specializes in NYC trips & may have connections w/ NY agencies. There are many NY tourist sites to help you select things of interest to you as well. Depends on time of year ( weather & sightseeing) for calendar events which can be found online & length of stay. There are actually free & low cost things to see & do if you look & ask locals of your age what they do & where they go for dining, entertainment & shopping. Also depends on what part of UK you are from. A Londoner will feel at home ( you might be tripping over fellow Brits) but will enjoy of the "differences". Friends from te UK enjoyed themselves ( on expense accounts ) and found the city & people to be fun ( not American TV & movies ) There are decent ,clean hotels( no need to go high end ) if you plan on any serious tourism. Always advise visitors not to try for too much in one day & save some energy for evenings. Best way too see NYC is on foot , wander around a general area . eat on the street & the smaller sidestreet "delis" cafe's & restaurants to get a chance to relax . We "borrowed" the London double deck buses & they are a good way to scout areas you might want to visit later. Perfect? ..siut yourself & discuss things you see online w/ your agent.. Best regards

1. Know when (the time of year) is best to travel 2. Know what websites to use for booking flights/hotels. 3. Know how far in advance to book flights/hotel rooms. 4. Know if booking a combo is really cheaper than separate. 5. Know the transportation methods from the airport. 6. Know which of the 3 airports to book for. 7. Know which hotel is near the airport for in case flights are cancelled. 8. Know how much spending cash will be need. 9. Know where to go for currency conversion. 10. Know where to find a map of the city to get around. 11. Know which attractaction to see and which to skip. 12. Know the best days/times to visit a landmark to avoid the crowds. 13. Know if your credit/debit card works outside of your country. 14. Know when to notify your bank about foreign use to prevent locked cards. 15. Know if a place has free admission on a specific day of the week. 16. Know when to use connections instead of non-stop flights. 17. Know when to apply for ESTA or VISA. 18. Know when to get MetroCards 19. Know what to pack and what to leave behind. 20. Know than plans changes and what to do. All the best, Steve http://411newyork.org

The best way to plan a holiday to New York City is by visiting all the landmark and major attractions. May I recommend the following. Landmarks -Empire State Building -Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island -Rockefeller Center and the Top of the Rock Observation Deck -Times Square (no trip is complete without a visit to the"Crossroads of the World") -Lower Manhattan/Wall Street Area -United Nations -Central Park -Brooklyn Bridge (you can walk across it too) -Grand Central Terminal (largest railroad terminal in the world) -A Ride on the Staten Island Ferry (its free and you can see the Statue of Liberty as the ferry crosses the harbor) -Sightseeing tour on a Double Decker Bus -Bronx Zoo/New York Botonical Garden -Yankee Stadium -City Island -Riverdale -Governor's Island Museums -Museum Mile (Fifth Avenue from East 82nd to East 103rd Streets) -Museum of Natural History and the Rose Center for Earth and Space (formerly the Hayden Platerium) -MoMa -Whitney Museum of American Art -New Museum of Contemporary Art -Madame Tussaud Wax Museum -New York City Fire Museum -New York City Police Museum -Transit Museum -The Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum -The Bronx Museum of the Arts -Brooklyn Museum -Milk Gallery -American Craft Museum -Museum of American Folk Art -Museum of the Moving Image -The Paley Center For Media (formerly the Museum of Television and Radio) -The Municipal Art Society Shopping -Macy's (West 34th Street and Broadway in the heart of Hearld Square) -Bloomingdale's (Lexington Avenue at East 59 and East 60 Streets) -The shops along Fifth Avenue (just don't max out you credit cards) -FAO Schwarz -Toys "R" Us in Times Square -Lord and Taylor (5th Avenue at East 38th Street) -Chinatown/Canal Street Area (if you want to go on the cheap for the stuff you can't get on Fifth Avenue) -NBA Store (for the basketball fan - 5th Avenue at East 52nd Street) -The Apple Computer Store (East 59th Street and Fifth Avenue) -The Time Warner Center (West 59th Street - Columbus Circle) -Hershey Store (for those with a sweet tooth) -M&M World (49th Street and 7th Avenue) -Grand Central Terminal (for the shopping) -H&M -Century 21 Department Store (Church and Cortlandt Street) -forever 21 -Barneys New York (660 Madison Ave) -Abercrombie & Fitch (5th Avenue @ 57th Street and Water Street between Fulton and John Streets) -American Eagle Outfitters (4 locations in Manhattan) -Urban Outfitter (8 locations in Manhattan) -Manhattan Mall -Queens Center Mall -Queens Place Mall -Roosevelt Field Mall (on Long Island) -Fulton Street Mall -Kings Plaza Mall -Woodbury Common Premium Outlets -Garden State Plaza -The Westchester Mall -Palisades Center Mall -Westfield Sunrise Mall -Green Acres Mall -Jersey Gardens Restaurants In regards to place to eat in New York City. There are thousands of restaurants in the Five Boroughs of New York City. Depending on your taste, your budget and your preferred location, may I recommend the link below. http://www.menupages.com/ -- MenuPages.com is the one of the best website on the online. It included menus with prices, as well as restaurant reviews. Bon appetit! I hope this information is very helpful. Good luck Native New York

First set a budget. Once you determine how much you can afford, the second step is to select your travel dates. Keep in mind there are very few "low" periods in NYC (in otherwords, it's almost always busy and hotel reservations are a must regardless when you are coming to NYC). After you have selected dates and your budget then you can start shopping for air and hotels. I highly recommend Kayak.com (http://www.kayak.com) this allows you to compare prices with lots of online sites at once and this includes the big sites such as Expedia.com This is a free service and no registration is required. Finally once you are booked then you can determine what you want to see and do in NYC. There are Broadway shows, museums, shopping, sightseeing, restaurants and the list goes on and on. Best of luck with your planning.

My husband & I went to New York in May this year and I agree with the advice everyone else has said, plan well in advance. my husband left it up to me to pretty much research as it was for my 40th, so he knew it would be everything I wanted to do and see. First thing we decided on was a place to stay, this involved where we wanted to be based for a whole week, so choose carefully with that one, also was the budget of hotel, as take into consideration that you will hardly be in your hotel. The first decision being just picking a hotel is a very important one so don't skim over that, if too cheap, you face staying in a terrible noisy hotel and new york is a very noisy place, we stayed on Park avenue which was close enough to it all but far enough away from constant sirens at night in times square and 5th ave. next is buying all your tickets, we go through attractionticketsdirect.com for our tickets to florida and so went with them for new york too, we purchased a 5 attraction ticket and this was paid for well in advance of us going, and then when we had more money we purchased our statue of liberty tickets online (remember to get inside the statue you have to book online at statue of liberty website as without the official checks done on you, you will only get on podium) and then to spread our money here, we just bought something every month. the 5 attraction tickets got us into empire state building, top of the rock, madame tussauds, all the open top bus tours (1 redemption of an attraction will get you on uptown tour, downtown tour and nighttime tour as long as you go on the same day) the nighttime tour was recommended to me by someone that went on it and I would recommend it to everyone who says they're going to new york, it is amazing. they take you at around 7 or 8pm over brooklyn and stop to allow you to see manhattan in the dark with all the lights on the bridge and in financial district, an amazing trip not to be missed, but take a heavy jacket no matter what month you go in as it is freezing on the open top bus at night. we also got the TV and movie tour with our attraction tickets. they send you a card to your house to take and you go into madamme tussauds to redeem them for the next day attraction. we also budgeted for a shopping trip, 5th ave is beautiful up towards the park, and a bit tacky in places down towards macy's, so we knew it would either be too expensive at one end to shop in and the other I wouldn't find anything to take home, so we booked a trip to an outlet mall called woodbury commons, whcih will take up a whole day and great savings can be had there. we got the bus from Port authority(bus terminal) and the buses are very frequent and convenient to get back from too. My best advice I can give you and anyone going to New York for the first time is to scour the internet, sit for hours and look up anything you can find on it, type up words that is associated with new york, for example empire state building, top of the rock, central park, tiffany's, bloomingdales, bryant park, etc and research as much as you can well in advance. if you buy everything here before you go, remember that if you are only going to sightsee and enjoy being there, you'll not need that much money for food or anything else, everything is quite on par with over here, breakfast is reasonable in Grand central terminal, and then it's McDonald's or pizzas for dinner and the prices are much similar to here. my husband bought me loads of books but I hardly found out anything from them, I found more out from internet. you'll love yourself there, have a blast

Check for packages from http://www.southalltravel.co.uk. You may like something.

using a travel agent is still the best, not the cheapest though