Two days in New York

With only a short time in New York, it makes sense to explore the city’s beating heart: Midtown Manhattan. And where better to get a taste for all things New York than in the great green lung that is Central Park, surrounded by dog walkers, coffee carts, American elms and tantalizing glimpses of gleaming glass-and-steel skyscrapers beyond?

Unless you plan to dedicate a whole one of your two available days exploring the park’s epic 843 acres, we’d recommend the compact sightseeing option: a two-hour guided bike tour that kicks off at 10AM and ticks off many of Central Park’s best bits. That’d be John Lennon tribute Strawberry Fields and the Imagine mosaic, the glorious Bethesda Fountain, the fairytale folly that is Belvedere Castle and the fancy flora in the Shakespeare Garden. Magical.

Want more Central Park ideas? Peruse our pick of the park’s highlights here.

Hotfoot it along 6th, where one of the planet’s great art institutions lies just a few minutes south of Central Park. Yep, that’d be the quite extraordinary Museum of Modern Art aka MoMA, where you can peer at a Pollock, mull over a Monet and stare endlessly into Van Gogh’s Starry Night. First things first though: it’s lunchtime, so make straight for MoMA’s Terrace Café –  an art-filled space complete with painterly views of Midtown Manhattan. Or slash out at The Modern, which overlooks the sculpture garden and serves artful plates that wouldn’t look out of place in, well, a gallery. 

Suitably fortified, it’s time to get to the good stuff. We’re talking landmark works by a veritable who’s who of 20th-century art. They’re all here, from Dali’s nightmarish Persistence of Memory to Brâncuși’s abstract sculptural forms, via Cézanne, Kahlo, Picasso, Rothko, Rauschenberg, Duchamp and, of course, Warhol’s iconic Elvis-, Marilyn- and soup-can-based pop art.

Read our guide to visiting the Museum of Modern Art here.

Grab a couple snaps of St Patrick’s Cathedral en route to Grand Central Terminal, just another handful of blocks south, then a short scootch across to Park Avenue. Ok sure, this storied train station is only one of many architectural marvels you could check out in Midtown (lookin’ at you, Empire State, Chrysler, Rockefeller and Flatiron Buildings), but there’s just so much stuff to see and do here that it’s always worth a visit.

This place is quintessential New York, and a total sight to behold – in fact, there’s every chance you’ll have spotted it in TV shows and movies before. Take time to walk around and appreciate its soaring, celestial ceiling and Beaux-Arts architecture and to mumble sweet nothings across the arches of the ultra-cool acoustic anomaly that is the Whispering Gallery. And don’t miss the chance to set your watch by its near-priceless clocks – the world\’s largest Tiffany glass clock on the 42nd Street façade and the four-faced opal glass clock atop the information booth on the terminal’s main concourse, said to be worth up to $20 million. 

Midtown Manhattan presents a myriad of cool things to do after the sun goes down, but what could be more NYC than catching a Broadway show? If you’re less fussed about what you’re going to see and more interested in the experience itself, we’d recommend hitting up the Times Square TKTS booth for same-day seats at up to 50% off the regular retail price. But be aware, you’re more likely to find availability for the lesser-known shows than for your big-hitters like Hamilton, Wicked and the Lion King. But hey, you only live once, so if you’ve got the funds, it’s well worth splashing out on a biggie. You’ll be singing Defying Gravity at the top of your lungs all the way home – much to the dismay of your fellow airplane passengers, no doubt.

Fancy a late bite after the show? Mosey over to Koreatown for some of the best bibimbap and spicy Korean stew in town. Yum.

Take the weight off and let this open-top hop-on hop-off bus tour do all the hard work. With loops that cover both Uptown and Downtown, you could just stay on board all day long if the mood took you, switching loops at the Times Square intersection every 90 minutes or so. But for the sake of brevity, we’ll be sticking to the Downtown route today. Fill your pockets with candies at M&Ms World then jump aboard for a cruise south through Broadway, the Flatiron District, SoHo, Chinatown and Little Italy, before cruising past Brooklyn Bridge and into the Financial District. It’s well worth hopping off to explore a little deeper into the areas that interest you most – there’ll be another bus along to collect you in around 30 minutes, after all. So jump off and grab a selfie at the Flatiron Building, explore the cool cast-iron architecture in SoHo or grab an early lunch in Chinatown – dumplings, umami roast pork buns and classic egg tarts for the win.

Afterwards, make your way along Wall Street – either back on the bus, on foot (about a mile-and-a-half) or on the subway – eyeballing the historic Trinity Church, New York Stock Exchange and Charging Bull and Fearless Girl statues en route to The Battery.

What would a trip to New York be without taking a ferry out to pay homage to Lady Liberty up close? Well, it would be no trip to New York at all really. Sure, you could take the free Staten Island Ferry and strain your eyes from starboard to catch a glimpse of the Green Goddess. But nothing beats getting right up close. And that’s exactly what you’ll be doing on the official Statue City Cruises boat, which stops at both Ellis and Liberty Islands, giving you the time and freedom to explore the fascinating Ellis Island Immigration Museum and worship at the massive toes of what is surely the most famous statue in the world.

It’s easy to spend a whole afternoon here and, should you so desire, you can also add a climb up to the very pedestal on which Lady Liberty stands or – if you have a head for heights – climb the precipitous 162-step internal staircase right up into the famous crown for unparalleled views back across the water to the skyscrapers that line Lower Manhattan’s waterfront.

Depending how long you’ve spent immersing yourself in the world of Liberty Island, you may find you still have time to squeeze in a Lower Manhattan museum when you get back. The smart money’s on the moving 9/11 Memorial and Museum with heartrending stories of human bravery and endurance and mesmerizingly peaceful twin reflective pools. Or head east along the waterfront to the South Street Seaport Museum for a tantalizing glimpse into New York’s maritime origin story, complete with a docked 19th-century fleet that you can climb aboard and explore, and sensational sunset views of the nearby Brooklyn Bridge.

Rock back up to Midtown, where the Depression-era Art Deco gem that is the Rockefeller Center is where it's at for starry-eyed Manhattan skyline views. Whiz up to Top of the Rock in the super-fast elevator (70 stories in 43 seconds) and emerge to uninterrupted alfresco views across New York’s famous rooftops, an experience that’s arguably even more magical after dark when the city’s all lit up like a Christmas tree.

Your absolutely essential photo op here is the Empire State Building, which rises spacerocket-like into the skyline around a mile south of the Rockefeller Center. And, of course, you might very well want to ascend that one instead on your last evening in town although, of course, the one thing you can’t see from the Empire State Building is, ell, the Empire State Building itself.

Other illuminated objects that you might spot from Top of the Rock include the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, the distinctive lights of Madison Square Garden and the Yankee Stadium and even, if you squint a little, your old pal Lady Liberty still standing sentinel out there in the bay.

Compare experiences at Top of the Rock vs the Empire State Building here.