Every year in January I go to NYC with my best friend Mary. And every time we go there we find new areas to explore, new attractions to experience, and new restaurants to eat at! The city that never sleeps also never gets old for us – we look forward to visiting it each year and we’re never ready to leave when it’s time to go.
We also stay at a different hotel each time we visit. This year we stayed at the Hilton New York Times Square, smack dab in the heart of it all. You can’t really get a more ideal location for a hotel if you’re going to the big apple. You immediately step out into all the lights and excitement of this iconic area, with plenty of cool attractions nearby or easy access to the subway for excursions elsewhere. We also had a pretty amazing view from our room up on the 40th floor looking over Manhattan.
We had a Go City All-Inclusive Pass for this trip, which allowed us to fit as many attractions into a day as we wanted (although it can be purchased for up to 3 days). The pass is a flat fee and I worked out that for the everything we did it would cost more than $100 extra to pay for individual tickets. We managed to fit in The Rise, the Museum of Broadway, a Candlelight tour of the Catacombs, Madame Tussauds and The Ride. It all definitely made for a fun and eventful day!
On another day we went on a walking food tour of Chinatown & Little Italy. This 3 hour tour of 2 historic NYC neighborhoods has 2 or 3 seated tastings along with 5 or 6 on-the-go tastings There were about 10 in our group and we were led through the maze of the streets that make up these neighbourhoods while our licensed guide entertained us with fascinating historical stories. We learned about secrets of the city, historic parks, and the NYC architecture we saw along the way.
Speaking of food, my favourite full meal was having a steak dinner at STK Steakouse. This is a modern steakhouse-lounge restaurant chain in the US known for its “vibe dining” experience that blends a chic lounge atmosphere with high-quality steaks (among other upscale food offerings). This location was walking distance to the hotel – right near Bryant park. The ambience was very nice, the service was really good, and the steaks were quite delicious.
Besides eating great food, I also can’t ever go to NYC without seeing a Broadway show and this time I saw a classic – Little Shop of Horrors. I’ve always loved the movie and the live theatre version did not disappoint. The talent on stage in this city is always top notch and the actors really brought the show to life with fantastic singing and great characterisations that brought lots of laughs from the crowd.
But beyond all that, the highlight of this visit to New York City, and what will forever stand out in my mind about it, was the fact that I got to see myself up on a billboard in Times Square! I was recently voted as Best Travel Content Creator in the annual GayCities review of the top LGBTQ people and places in the travel industry, and this was the big cherry on top of winning that awesome title. I might have dreamed one day I’d see myself up there, but I’m not sure I ever thought it’d actually happen!
Mary and I are already looking forward to our next trip to New York, assuming things get better between Canada and the US before next year. Like many Canadians, I’ll be pulling back on visiting more American destinations for the time being because of the unfair tariffs that are being imposed on our country, but hopefully things will get back to normal soon and we can plan our next adventure to this exciting city!
Some of the experiences in this article were comped, but none had no input on my writing.
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