Planning your NYC Vacation Makes all the Difference
Whether you realize it or not, planning is the key to any successful vacation. You do not have to be a vacation tyrant that makes your family dread vacations and the boot camp they entail but by having some sort of plan of action for each day of your vacation you can much better stick to a budget as well as assuring you will get the rest and relaxation that is so very important to the renewal of mind and body before returning to work.
Vacations do not have to cost a vast fortune, even vacations in cities that are known for being expensive such as New York City. Most people fail to realize that people of all economic backgrounds live in these cities as well and there are some forms of entertainment that offer a little something for everyone and many of these are free. If you plan carefully you can have two or three activities that are low or no cost in one area of the city each day followed by a restful hour or two in your room during the afternoon and a very nice event for each evening. This gives you budget control, down time each day for you and your kids and (if planned right) activities in one general area each day rather than spending a lot of time and money on transportation.
Most cities have city guides that can be found easily online. New York City is no different. In fact there are several city guides. It would be a good idea to find out the activities you can do for little or no cost, choose several of those activities that interest you or may interest other members of your family and see where they are all located in reference to each other. Try to bunch the several that are geographically central to each other for one day’s activities and doing the same for subsequent days.
Keep in mind that you aren’t marrying the plan and shouldn’t overlook things you happen upon that may not have been in the guide or may not have seemed as appealing in the guide as they do in person. Some of the best trips we’ll ever make in life are detours. Not only that, but if you allowed yourself the cushion of time each day I recommended earlier you have the option of adjusting your schedule slightly and enjoying less rest or skipping one of the less appealing items on your itinerary in favor of this new attraction you found.
Vacations are meant to be fun for the entire family. We often forget that and make plans without getting the input of the family. If you do not allow for open dialog and at least get some input from all family members no one is going to enjoy the vacation. The kids are going to be fussy and irritated, the spouse is going to feel neglected and overlooked, and you are going to feel that no one is sticking to the plan. This is why getting everyone to look over the plan, sign off on the plan, and to compromise is by far the best way to go about things. This way everyone has input, everyone gets something that is important to them out of the vacation experience, and there are no major surprises or upsets involved. Everyone knows what to expect along the way.
It is better by far when you can build happy vacation memories rather than of hours spend in the hot sun with cranky children who feel as though no one is taking their input seriously or spending a day with cranky spouses in desperate need of some downtime themselves. So plan for these times as well as the activities (particularly the more costly activities) in which you will participate. No ahead of time where the bulk of your money will be spent and make it clear that there is only so much money to be spent. Many people don’t keep close enough track of vacation spending and find they’ve spent far more than they anticipated.
Published with Blogomator
New York for the Adrenaline Junkie
For the fun loving thrill seeker New York City is one giant playground. Whether you are into extreme sports, extreme movies, or simply watching others go to extremes you should get a healthy dose of it all in this great city. From reading to gaming and extreme sports and every extremity in between you have come to the right city to fill all of your extreme needs in entertainment and art.
Web2Zone Cyber Center has all of your extreme gaming and computing needs. They offer regular tournaments for the serious games while also offering simple Internet access for those who’d like to socialize while they spend time in cyber space. They are not your typical Internet Caf鮠Not only do they offer a place to log in, they also offer one of the fastest Internet connections around. They do not offer wireless service but will be glad to loan you an Ethernet card or port for your laptop with proper collateral. For the gamers, events and tournaments are hosted regularly and plenty of opportunities abound to flex your gaming muscles.
For those of you looking for cooler extreme entertainment, how about checking out the Sky Rink at Chelsea Piers? This is a great way to keep things cool any time of the year while getting the great kind of workout you won’t find in a traditional gym. This is definitely worth checking out and while you are here you can check out all of the other great things that Chelsea Piers has to offer its visitors. Among those neat things are bowling, the golf club, the field house, and the Spa. This is definitely a great place to spend the day in order to work out any excess energy you may have or to get your blood pumping and your day off to a fabulous start.
If you like the feeling of wind in your hair then perhaps a trip by ferry will fill that need. Really you don’t need a specific destination in order to take a ride on the Ferry and enjoy the scenery. You can also elect to take specific tours on your ferry ride; check to see what’s available during you stay and you might even find that you can combine two great activities with one trip. There are many different cruises available some last ninety minutes and take place during the day and others offer a view of the city at night as your spend two hours enjoying mixed drinks and city lights.
If the ferry ride doesn’t fill your need for the wind in your hair, then perhaps you should stroll on over to Coney Island (strolling might not be the best option but get there somehow) and check out Astroland Amusements Park’s The Cyclone. This ride is super intense and often replicated but never quite duplicated. This ride is famous around the world and should satisfy even the biggest roller coaster geek and/or adrenaline junkie out there. Skeptical? The only way you’ll ever know is to see for yourself. Of course there are other things that this park has to offer those who seek smaller, less intense thrills as well.
It really doesn’t matter what specific thrills you seek, being in New York City, enjoying the smells, the sights, and the sounds are enough for many adrenaline junkies and many find that being in this city is like being nowhere else on earth. Take the time to see what activities you might find interesting and go for it. Seize the moments you have in this city and enjoy every activity you try during your visit. The purpose of a vacation is both to have fun and to relax. Be sure you don’t spend the entire time seeking one adrenaline high after another or you’ll find yourself needing a vacation in order to recover from your vacation. Seriously, with all the fun there is to be had most people forget the importance of scheduling some down time during their vacations, don’t let this happen to you.
Published with Blogomator
Shop for Art off the Beaten Path
Art is one of many cultural draws in New York City. There are art galleries in abundance in this great city and almost certainly an artist to fit almost any taste. Art has always been to some degree in the eyes of the beholder and beauty in the city of New York is in abundant supply.
Whether you consider yourself an enthusiastic supporter of art and the arts, it’s hard to deny the fact that New York has a great deal of art to offer those who are willing to seek it. From the graffiti that is so artfully rendered along bridges, buildings, busses, and signs throughout the city to murals and store windows that are so wonderfully made art comes in this city in many forms. You will find artists, sketchers, painters, and those seeking muses wandering around various parts of the city that may be particularly lovely, inspiring, or even forlorn.
The art doesn’t end with sketches, drawings, or paintings. It goes well beyond that. In this great city you will see sculptors with magnificent works that might be inspiring to you and might be utterly and completely unintelligible and you might find art that touches your heart and simply won’t let go. For whatever reason, art for most of us is purely emotional. This isn’t only true for the painter but also for those who witness the beauty of the art that has been created.
There is also pottery, blown glass, metal works, wood works, and literally dozens of other works of art within this city. You can stroll through the many galleries of the city or walk along the streets and through the parks seeking art and the artists that create these wonderful works. You might find the grandest work of art in the hands of the slightest of creatures or in the most unlikely of places. New York is full of surprises that go far beyond the beaten paths.
If you are truly seeking art to bring home from your trip to New York, the best place to look is in second hand or consignment shops. You can generally find nice pieces of art at unbelievably low prices. This is one of the best ways to begin building your collection and there are some second hand shops that specialize in artwork or ‘junk art’. Of course there are galleries that deal with rare second hand art and it is highly unlikely that you’ll find a discount there. Stick to the consignment shops, flea markets and used furniture stores if you are truly seeking some nice pieces that are seriously undervalued.
Keep in mind that the art you choose only needs to speak to you (and hopefully match your d飯r to some degree, unless of course you are searching for an excuse to redecorate) and doesn’t have to really mean anything at all. When you do find a piece of art that you feel you must own, price is often not a consideration. This makes the fact that you’re looking in a second hand store a much better way to shop. At least in this instance you won’t have to deal with sticker shock from the massively over inflated price tags you will find in most galleries. Of course that is because they are recovering their commissions off the top so you’re automatically knocking off that much of a discount by shopping second hand and off the beaten path.
Published with Blogomator
New York City of Diversity
If you’ve never been to New York City, you may be surprised to know that there is so much more to this great city than skyscrapers, lots of people, and really fantastic parades. While it is in fact the wonderful people of this city that make it the exciting place to visit that it has become, there is so much more to this city than what you’ll see on the television shows and in the news.
New York City is a city full of exciting people from all kinds of backgrounds with all kinds of hopes and dreams of the future and experiences of the past. You will find artwork here like few other places in the world, you will see more nature here than in most big cities around the world, and you will enjoy seeing more cultures and nationalities represented in the space of an hour in this city than most people who live elsewhere experience in their entire lives. New York City is the true melting pot of the world and the rest of America is simply trying to catch up.
You will find music and art that is representative of the many cultures that call this grand city home. You will experience the sights, sounds, and scents of worlds that are exotic and foreign simply by walking down neighborhood streets where people are cooking dinner at night. You will hear more languages in one day than you probably ever dreamed imagine and while you may stand around with sensory overload thinking anyone would be crazy to live like this, most of them are looking at you thinking you’d be crazy to live anywhere else.
This is perhaps the greatest thing about visiting New York City. You get to experience for a moment the excitement that comes from living in this fascinating city. You get to understand what it is like for those living there. And you get to understand first hand what it is like to be alone in a city of millions and yet by being there, being one of them, belonging somehow to this giant community of strangers from different cultures, different pasts, and different futures.
Most people visit New York with certain preconceived ideas and certain goals for their visits. Hopefully the preconceived ideas will all be challenged and the plans that you have made are flexible. There is so much to do and see that you could go one block each way from your hotel and probably notice something new each and every single time you went by. My point in this is that you need to leave time to experience the wonderful things you won’t discover in the guidebooks. There is only so much of this city that any one person could possibly find to write about. I can imagine that there are New Yorkers that could eat in a different restaurant each and every day without eating in the same one twice in five or ten years. I find it hard to believe that a guide book is going to be able to hold everything you might find interesting in this city and if you spend your entire visit with your head in the book you might miss something truly worthwhile.
That being said, it is a good idea to make plans according to your budget and the things you wish to see, I’m just urging you to leave room in that schedule for change. The Statue of Liberty is great, but it takes a while to get there and back. Could it be that you take some photos, buy some post cards and do two or three other activities that you could have enjoyed in the space of time it takes to get there and back? Plans are made to change whenever possible-especially while on vacation. I seriously recommend that you reserve two hours minimum each day to do something that you discovered rather than something you planned.
Published with Blogomator