People around the world talk about visiting New York City. I get it: it’s big, fascinating, full of history and there are so many things to do. Spending a weekend in New York City is easy and can be an absolute blast, including if you’re visiting with kids. We’ve been to NYC many times and in all seasons. Honestly a weekend isn’t enough time to do and see everything in New York City, but you really can do and enjoy a lot in 2-3 days.
Considering our love of museums, history and theater, our weekend in NYC guide may be just perfect to help you plan a trip. We’ve got ideas for all kinds of interests and budgets, and tips to make it extra fun for kids (or even if you’re doing NYC with teens). If you have any questions about planning your weekend in New York or need additional recommendations, please leave a comment or send us a note. We’re always happy to share more and help you plan a great NYC adventure!
Highlights of a Long Weekend in New York City
For people like us that live in small towns, a weekend in New York City can feel like an overwhelming experience, and you know, it is. Arriving in NYC, you’re immediately greeted by countless people going all kinds of places and moving so quickly. If you’re not used to it you might be reeling back as you try to get your Metro tickets into the city at JFK, but don’t worry, it gets better. I love that even though people are moving fast and there’s a lot of yelling, New Yorkers are actually helpful people that are happy to point you in the right direction or share their favorite places to go. You’ll be okay.
Beyond the initial impression of the city, spending a weekend in New York can be a healthy dose of culture like you can get nowhere else. I feel like we spend so much time in museums when we travel, but even in New York where there are so many things to do we’re still drawn to the museums because they really are world class and iconic. Whether it’s art, history or science, you have lots of options and they’re all awesome.
For our family, we’ve really leaned into the Broadway side of New York. It started with me always being in NYC for work and only having the evenings free to do fun things, and now we make a point of taking advantage of ticket deals and planning trips based on what sort of shows we can see aligned with good flights and hotels. We’ve been able to do three shows in a weekend in New York and it was awesome. I think we all have different ideas of what makes a great trip though, so consider all of our suggestions and see what will work out best for your own trip to NYC. PS: I think doing everything we suggest is worth a five day trip, so don’t stress trying to fit it into 2-3 days.
Weather When you Visit NYC
New York City in summer: HOOOOOTTTTTT. NYC in winter: freeeeezzzing, but NYC at Christmas is really fun and spirited. New York in spring and fall: maybe a little rainy, but great temperatures and beautiful sights in the city. Being a big city, you can visit New York for the weekend any time of year and you’ll be able to access most activities and events, but there are some things that are just not quite as fun in the winter. For example, I love visiting Central Park, but in the winter the ponds are all frozen and there are no leaves on the trees. It’s barren and sad, and super cold. In the summer, you may have lots of sunshine, but sweltering temps in July and August make walking around Manhattan a legit stretch of misery.
Really, early fall and mid spring are the BEST times to visit New York City. In April there are tulips everywhere and the city parks and squares are in bloom. When fall starts to settle in, the leaves start changing and the colors are amazing. New York City can be beautiful in the winter too, but if you’re not ready for the 10-30 degree temperatures, you may hate it. I spend a lot of time in NYC in January and am always faced with frigid, painful cold. I’ll tell you, winter is NOT the time for activities like the Statue of Liberty or walking across the Brooklyn Bridge…
Where to Stay for a Weekend in New York City
When you start planning your weekend in New York City, you’ll have to balance your budget across flights, activities, shows and hotels. I find that hotels are the biggest consistent cost, so we usually look at finding a hotel first. In the winter you can get amazing hotel deals (around $150 USD per night), but in spring and summer the nightly rate tends to skyrocket into the $300-$400 range. If you find a great deal, even if it’s not in the exact part of mid-town Manhattan that you were hoping for, grab that deal!
My preference when looking for a hotel in New York really is to stay midtown, ideally south of Times Square. Even though this is further from the museums and not directly in the Theater District I find that the food options and hotel prices in Times Square South are the best. If you’re able to stay north of Grand Central Station, that makes for easy access to transportation, museums and many events that happen in Manhattan, but dining isn’t my favorite in this slice of Manhattan. For a unique stay that puts you in a more historic area, consider the Financial District. You can sometimes find amazing deals and this is the gateway to the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, Trinity Church, Federal Hall and much more. I actually really like staying in the Financial District as lame as its name sounds.
Should I stay OUTSIDE of Manhattan? No, you shouldn’t. There isn’t much cost savings by staying outside of Manhattan, especially once you factor in the costs of getting into the city. NYC has such a broad range of hotels on the island that it’s not worth the inconvenience and minimal savings to stay in New Jersey of Brooklyn/Queens.
Things to Do for a Trip to New York City
We put together our weekend in New York City to cover a lot of the iconic sights and things to do, but then we mixed in some other fun stuff too. A long weekend is best if you can swing it, but if you only have two and a half days, you’ll be able to still have a great time with some good planning and prioritizing what you want to see and experience. We’ve done NYC with kids so many times, and lots without them too, so if you need help after reading through, just let us know!
TIP: the New York CityPASS is a great way to get several of your attractions bundled together and it’s actually a pretty good cost savings AND way to plan you weekend in NYC. Look at the CityPASS and see what’s included currently and then plan around using as many of the covered activities as possible.
Empire State Building
Heck yes, I’m starting with the Empire State Building. If you have just a weekend in New York City, you need to visit the icons and the places that resonate with your own nostalgia of NYC, even if you haven’t ever been before. I love visiting the Empire State Building because it’s a combination of both an incredible Observation Deck and a really cool museum. You get to go through exhibits about the building of the ESB and development of Midtown Manhattan, and then roll through the movie iconography featuring the Empire State Building… It’s fun and fascinating and a great thing to do for a weekend trip to New York City. Be sure to get your tickets in advance, especially if you’re aiming to visit on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.
Tip: the Empire State Building is included in the New York CityPASS!
New York Public Library
Yes, it’s another iconic NYC site and yes, it’s worth visiting. Planning an awesome weekend trip to New York means that you’ll be able to visit the New York Public Library during one of the times when the famous Rose Main Reading Room is open to the general public. Besides this famous spot, the NYPL also houses a really incredible museum collection of pieces integral to American stories, and not just literature, but the story of the United States of America. Items like a copy of the Bill of Rights, George Washington’s farewell speech, a Gutenberg Bible… there are so many pieces at the New York Public Library that help tell the story of America and lend some gravity to New York’s role in it.
New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
Another must-visit for a weekend in New York City, the Museum of Modern Art is great with any age traveler. We first visited when our oldest was 12 and it was his favorite museum he had ever been to at that point, and I get it. MoMA is really special and it’s full of familiar art that kids and adults connect with. You’ve got Monet, Andy Warhol, Picasso, Mondrian… It’s a bucket list museum and so iconic as a part of visiting NYC.
Lower Manhattan Historic Sites
Some people might not suggest spending time in Lower Manhattan if you only have a weekend, but I think it’s an important and interesting area to put on your itinerary. Lower Manhattan is where America began in many ways. From Federal Hall where George Washington was sworn in as the First President of the United States to the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, there are lots of important places to visit in Lower Manhattan. If you’re staying in Midtown Manhattan for the weekend, you can hop on either the 2, 3, 4, 5, J or Z trains to arrive in the heart of the Financial District of Lower Manhattan. I would recommend a half day here visiting the many sites and museums, including the 9/11 Memorial and museum if you’re interested.
Tip: the 9/11 Memorial and Museum are included in the New York CityPASS as well.
Note: even though the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island cruises go from Lower Manhattan, that’s a big chunk of time, so if you have extra time and can plan for it, we’ve added it at the end as a bonus activity.
See a Broadway Show
I think anyone who knows us knows that seeing a Broadway show (or two or three) is WHY we go to New York City. There are always so many amazing performances and new shows on Broadway that even if you’ve been to NYC many times you can always find something new to see. We have a few favorite shows that we’ve seen multiple times such a Wicked, SIX and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. You might have your favorites that you’ve seen while they’ve toured, and you know what, if you see the same show on Broadway it’s usually a completely different experience. We write a lot about seeing Broadway shows with kids, so if you’re having a weekend New York City trip as a family, we have some good recommendations for shows with all ages.
Walk the Highline
No matter the season, we always find ourselves walking the Highline through Hell’s Kitchen to Little Island. This wonderful elevated walkway is a nice break from walking on city streets. Full of gardens and public art, the Highline shows you a different side of Manhattan. When you get to the end of the Highline, you’ll be able to go down to street level and cross over to Little Island. This is a manmade island that acts as a park, a gathering place and even a performance space sometimes. I really like getting to Little Island and letting the kids go a little wild with all the park areas and interactive stuff. It’s a great addition to a weekend trip to New York City.
Visit Central Park
Since we’ve already had some wonderful iconic NYC sights to see and things to do, let’s add visiting Central Park to the mix. With tons of walking trails, bike paths and a million locations you’ve seen in movies and television shows, everyone finds something in Central Park that they enjoy. There’s even the Central Park Zoo, if you want to add that. It’s not a huge zoo but it’s pretty cool. Visiting Central Park is definitely best in summer and fall, but even in winter it’s kind of cool when everything is frozen.
Spending time in Central Park during your weekend in NYC is easily added, especially if you plan on visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Guggenheim. Or the Museum of Natural History. Or the Plaza Hotel… If you’re looking for a list of things to see in Central Park, we’ve got some good options for you and some are quite a ways to the north end:
- Central Park Zoo
- Bethesda Terrace
- Walking paths from end to end
- the Bow Bridge
- Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir
- Strawberry Fields (not actual strawberry agriculture)
- rent bikes and ride through the park
- use the park paths between the Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art…
Metropolitan Museum of Art
If you’re a museum person like me, consider whether or not the people you’re visiting New York with are as well. Visiting the Met, particularly on a weekend, can be overwhelming. It’s an enormous museum and it takes a long time to go through. I’ve been several times and have never been able to make it through more than half in one day. I’ll be honest, even though the Met is so cool and has some phenomenal exhibits and famous works, it’s never been a hit with my family, just me. They burn out within an hour, no matter how interesting and familiar the exhibits are. It’s a lot for kids to digest, and for a lot of adults too. If you feel like it’s not the right addition to your weekend trip to New York City, skip it and save it for when you can enjoy it on your own someday.
Visit the Morgan Library
I love getting to see opulence for an afternoon, but I don’t know that I could handle it all the time. And that’s what visiting the Morgan Library is for. This AMAZING Gilded Age library belonging to JP Morgan is the most perfect example of New York City wealth in the Gilded Age (late 1800s). The rich woods and fabrics, the leather bound books behind brass cages, the art collection: it’s all incredible. I haven’t seen anything else like this outside of Napoleon’s Apartments at the Louvre in Paris.
In addition to JP Morgan’s original library there is also an impressive museum of the Middle Ages attached to the building. All together this is approximately a 90 minute visit or so, but you could spend longer, especially if you’ve visiting on a Friday night when they do special performances in the atrium. The Morgan Library is a must during your weekend in New York.
Rockefeller Center, Top of the Rock and the NBC Studio Store
As cheesy as it may sound to go to Rockefeller Center when you visit New York City, it’s really a cool place. There are some stores that our kids think are worth our time (FAO Schwartz, the LEGO store, Nintendo store…) and it’s some of the best people watching in NYC. My favorite store at Rockefeller Center is on the 6th Ave side: the NBC Studios Store. This is where you can get every t-shirt and funny collectible from favorite TV shows like The Office or Saturday Night Live. But then a big highlight for some people is going to the Top of the Rock. This is the observation deck on the 70th floor. It’s pretty cool, but I prefer the observation deck and full experience at the Empire State Building. You do get an amazing view of the ESB from Top of the Rock though, so that’s pretty cool.
Tip: this is also included in the New York CityPASS.
Bonus Visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island
Because visiting the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are such involved activities that really do take a lot of time and planning, I see them more as bonuses if you can include them in a weekend in New York. You’ll take at least a half day, but likely around 6 hours to visit both sites, and that includes the boat rides between the islands. The Statue of Liberty is fun to visit, and I LOVE when we get to climb up into the Crown. It’s great with kids.
Ellis Island is an important visit, but it’s a tough one to digest. Being the primary immigration port into the USA until 1954, Ellis Island is full of history and exhibits all about the struggles people went through to come to the USA and the whole experience of being processed through the Island. There are some heavy displays and exhibits, and visiting with kids means that you need to be ready to have all manner of conversations with them about very serious topics. It’s amazing, but intense.
New York City really does live up to its hype and it’s so much fun as a family. If you’re visiting on your own or with kids, use our weekend in NYC guide as a baseline for planning your trip and then customize it to the activities and sights that most interest you. If you have any questions about planning this awesome long weekend trip or need more recommendations for things to do in New York City, please leave a comment or send us a note. We’re always happy to share more and help you plan a great NYC experience!
