New York is one of those cities you already know before you arrive. Experiencing it in person is different, though: more intense, noisier, and more contradictory than it appears from the outside.
More than 800 different languages are spoken in New York every day — the highest number of any city in the world. Entire neighbourhoods developed around communities that arrived from every corner of the planet over more than a century of continuous immigration, to the point that in some areas it is easier to hear Spanish, Chinese or Russian than English.
New York is one of the few cities that creates expectations even before you arrive. Films, TV series and photographs make it familiar even to those who have never been there. But experiencing it in person is different: more intense, noisier and more contradictory than it appears from the outside.
We have experienced New York in separate visits, each one taking away its own version of the same city.
There are days when the energy is contagious: packed bars, music in the street, the feeling that something is always happening. And days when the city weighs on you, exhausts you, makes itself felt too strongly. Within just a few blocks you move from the skyscrapers of Manhattan to working-class neighbourhoods, from luxury shops to small delis open all night. It is that variety that makes New York impossible to reduce to a single impression.
The best part of New York is experiencing it on foot, neighbourhood by neighbourhood. Little Italy, Chinatown, Harlem, Williamsburg, Brooklyn: each has a precise identity, often tied to the history of communities that have lived there for generations. You end up covering fifteen or twenty kilometres without really noticing, because the city keeps changing its face and never gets boring.
A bicycle adds distance without removing contact. Central Park early in the morning, before it fills up, is one of the rare moments when you forget you are in one of the largest metropolises in the world.
In New York, food tells the city's story better than any museum. Bagels come from the Eastern European Jewish tradition, pizza from the Italian communities, and so on for every neighbourhood and every community. A bagel with smoked salmon and cream cheese at a Lower East Side bakery at seven in the morning is one of those experiences you remember longer than any museum visit.
New York pizza deserves a separate conversation. It is different from Italian pizza — thinner, larger, sold by the slice — and defending or criticising it becomes almost a matter of identity for those who live there. Our verdict: it is absolutely worth trying, without prejudice.
The markets in the ethnic neighbourhoods are another way to understand how this city works: Flushing in Queens for Chinese food, Jackson Heights for Indian, Arthur Avenue in the Bronx for Italian-American tradition. New York is eaten as much as it is walked.
It is what most visitors know and the inevitable starting point. Midtown with Times Square is chaotic and overrated, but the Lower East Side, SoHo, the West Village and Harlem are a different story entirely. Do not spend all your time among the skyscrapers: head down to the river, walk to the bridges, lose a few hours at the weekend markets.
Brooklyn has become in recent years the part of New York that many people prefer. Williamsburg for nightlife and bars, DUMBO for views of the Brooklyn Bridge, Prospect Park for a slow afternoon. It has a less frantic pace than Manhattan and a cultural scene that is worth the trip on its own.
The most diverse neighbourhood in the city — and perhaps in the world. Flushing is a small China with authentic restaurants and food markets unlike anything you'll find elsewhere. Astoria still retains the soul of the Greek community. Queens is what many visitors skip, and that is precisely why it deserves a full day.
New York is expensive — that is a fact. But there are ways to experience it without spending everything on accommodation and restaurants. State museums have free or pay-what-you-wish entry on certain days of the week. The High Line park, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Governors Island in summer: quality experiences that cost nothing.
The subway is the backbone of the city and runs 24 hours a day. Learn it and use it without hesitation: trying to get everywhere by taxi or ridesharing app slows your visit down enormously. The time adds up, and so does the cost.
The best time to go? September and October, when summer is over but the cold has not yet arrived, the city returns to its rhythms and the summer tourists have gone home. Or May-June, before the heat sets in. Winter is tough but has its own charm — the city transforms and the bars close in on themselves, creating intimate spaces that do not exist in summer.
It depends on what you are looking for. New York is not a relaxing city. It is not a city you enjoy slowly sitting in a café — at least not in the way you might in Rome or Lisbon. It is a city that gives a great deal but asks just as much in return: energy, curiosity, willingness to embrace chaos.
If you are looking for something unique, you will struggle to find anywhere else the same concentration of cultures, stories, contradictions and possibilities. New York surprises you every day, even on your third or fourth visit. It is not for everyone, but at least once in a lifetime it deserves to be lived — not visited.
Are you thinking of visiting New York or the United States? Write to us: we'll plan a tailor-made itinerary together, based on what we've experienced.