How to spend 2 Days in New York City

A couple of years ago, I attended a wedding in Rhode Island which meant a 16-hour trip via car…one way…with two kids. BUT, since we were headed north anyway, we decided to spend 2 days in New York City.

At that time, I had only been to Manhattan once, when the eldest child was barely five. She and I had a great time visiting my brother. He took us to Central Park to eat a hot dog, see the Lion King on Broadway, ride the Ferris wheel in Toys-R-Us (at least 3 times), and for a walk around Chinatown.

We also got the charming experience of having my daughter get motion sickness on the subway and vomit into a random stranger’s Crate and Barrel bag. So you know…it was a well-rounded trip.

If you are looking for your own NYC excursion (minus the puking), this article is for you. I'll clue you in on activities you can do, places to stay, and a few other tips and tricks a long the way. Let's go!

Planning things to do in NYC

Before I started planning our whirlwind tour of the city, I asked each kid “What do you want to do in New York?” They only had one request apiece: the eldest (book nerd) wanted to go to the New York Public Library, and the younger one wanted to see the Brooklyn Bridge.

It actually made my planning easier, though. I just had to work in two for sure activities, and the rest of the itinerary was as long as we had time activities. I bought a street/subway map of the city so I could plot a course and get the most out of each day (2 full days + 1 evening and 1 morning).

So how do you squeeze as many adventures into 2ish days as humanly possible without sending yourself to the hospital with exhaustion? Very carefully, my friends. Oh, and good planning!

I wanted to create an itinerary that jammed in all the goodness the Big Apple had to offer, but didn’t make the vacation feel like this massive chore we were just slogging through. I made a list of all the things we wanted to see and plotted them on the handy-dandy map I bought from Amazon. I grouped them according to area, and I looked up their operating hours (because that would be a crazy bummer to show up 5 minutes after closing). I suggest you do something similar...in whatever method makes the most sense to you. Plotting your days is extremely helpful.

Here's How We Spent 2 Days in NYC

Saturday

• arrive in the evening, check into the hotel

• 7 train to Times Square for a quick look around

Sunday

• The Ride tour

• Lunch in Times Square and a visit to the MnM store

• Museum of Natural History (10-5:45)

Monday

• 7 train to Grand Central for breakfast

• NY Public Library (10-6)

• 7 train to Hudson Yards, walk or taxi to Pier 83 for The Beast boat ride (10-6)

• Metropolitan Museum of Art (10-5)

• Stroll through Central Park

Tuesday

• Check out by 11 am, breakfast in Long Island City

• Brooklyn Bridge on the way out of town

It was a lot to cram into a very short amount of time. On Monday, we ended up walking nearly 20 miles according to the step counter on my phone — a big chunk of it was roaming around the MET, which is HUGE. You need waaaay more time in there than you think you will.

Note: I purchased a _NYC City Pass to make the entrance fees to the attractions I wanted a little cheaper. I believe what is offered on the City Pass changes periodically, but it is helpful to check availability when planning, as it can discount some of your entertainment budget.

Finding a Place to Stay in New York City

My biggest planning dilemma was finding a place to stay. If you've ever priced hotels in Manhattan, then you feel my pain. It proved to be a difficult endeavor to find a reasonable place, cost-wise, that didn’t mention bed bugs in its Yelp reviews. Also, I had the extra consideration of finding a place that had parking.

Requiring a place to stow the car made hotel shopping a million times more difficult. I researched rooms in various parts of the city, and there are definitely some really great places to be found. I especially liked some of the smaller hotels and spots like Hotel 91, but most of them did not offer any parking. They either suggested a nearby parking deck, or (if they did have parking) it was so expensive that it made the room rate out of our budget.

I considered Staten Island for a minute or two. I looked at a couple of the common chain hotels, and they had reasonable prices with (as far as I could tell) free parking, but most of the travel articles do not recommend staying on Staten Island due to the excessive travel time to Manhattan activities.

So…I decided to make reservations at the Wyndham in Long Island City.

L.I.C. is the westernmost neighborhood of Queens and is a thriving arts community. It is a good alternative to staying in “the city” and is still accessible from Manhattan via the subway. Parking is offered at the hotel, and no mention of vermin in the Yelp reviews! Yay!

Is 2 Days Enough in NYC?

The short answer: no. New York City is massive, and there are too many different areas to explore. Two days is not nearly enough, but you can get a little taste of city life with proper planning!

Honestly, you could probably spend the rest of your life there and not see it all. But you have to work with the time you've got, right?