The city of New York is huge. There is a lot to visit and much to do. On this page I’ll take you through my journey of New York. Overall I have to say the city of New York is dirty. I’m talking about the Manhattan area. There’s garbage everywhere and it smells at some places downtown. Everybody knows this city is a home of rats. To be honest, I’ve not seen any rat during my stay in New York.
City Pass
I started to pre book some tickets for different activities through my favorite brand Get Your Guide. To be honest there’s a cheaper option where you are able to select the most favorite attractions you’d like. I have chosen C3 and I could choose 3 attractions for my 3 night stay. Below I’ll explain more about the city pass I’ve chosen.
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| Check out C3 | Check out City PASS | Check out C-ALL |
| Adult: $96 | Adult: $138 | Adult $212 |
| – 1Choose your 3 most favorite attractions – Choose this in case of a 2-3 night stay. | You will visit 5 top attractions. Empire State Building and American Museum of Natural History are two fixed attractions. There is made a selection on the website from CityPass (link above) where you need to choose 3 additional attractions. This CityPass I recommend you to buy when you stay 4-5 nights in New York or 3 nights in low season. | The C-ALL ticket provides one time admission to 11 top attractions. I do highly recommend this ticket if you stay more than 7 nights and you’re willing to visit multiple museums per day. At least it you’d like to visit all 11 locations. If you plan up-front, you can reserve tickets for all 11 locations in 5 days. |
Statue of Liberty
If you would like to visit the Statue of Liberty, you need access to the Ellis Island. The only way getting there is using the Ferry. This is included if you choose city pass. If you’d like to visit the Ellis Island without City Pass, please check the link below.
The Island itself is not really big. When I was there the island was full with tourists. I have visited New York in September 2023. The Statue of Liberty was a present from France to the United States back in 1867. If you visit the statue from inside, you will recognize the work of Gustave Eiffel who also created the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France.
Empire State Building
The best view over the whole city you need to check out by visiting the Empire State Building. This building was build back on March 17, 1930. One year later on April 11, 1931 the building was officially opened by President Hoover in Washington D.C.. The President pressed a button what activated the first lights of this 102 floors sky scraper.
It is possible to visit this building as visitor. If you have the City PASS from this site, it’s included or you need to choose for this attraction on CityPass’s website. If you don’t own a CityPASS please refer to the passes they offer back on top of this page. Or you can go ahead buy your ticket through Get Your Guide below.
More nice facts about the Empire State building is there are 102 floors. The total length of this building is 1250 feet from street level till top floor. Including Antenna the building is 1454 feet long which is 443 meters.
This building can be seen in many movies like King Kong or The Grinch. King Kong is climbing the tower to top level from outside. As visitor you can do the same but safely by elevator. Good to know is with a standard ticket you cannot reach the 102nd floor. An extra fee of $20 per person is required for going to this top-deck floor. All tickets include the 86th floor.
9/11 Memorial (Museum)
On September 11th, 2001 two airplanes were taken by the Taliban. One of these flights is known as flight 11. The leader was Al Qaeda who was killed ten years after the attack by the American Soldiers. The planes were flying into New York’s tallest skyscrapers (Twin Towers). The towers were part of the World Trade Center. American Airlines Flight 11 was the first flight flying into the north tower at 8:46 a.m. ET. Everybody aboard died and hundreds of people were trapped in the tower at upper floors. The plane was flying somewhere the 96th floor. A few moments later, at 9:03 a.m., the second plane United Airlines Flight 175 flew into the south tower. Also on this flight everybody was killed and same story for the people on the upper floors.
Many people managed to escape from the towers using the stairs. When outside they needed to use the last pair of stairs which can now be found in the 9/11 museum. The stairways are called the Survivor Stairs.
Walking there gave a really strange impression to me. I was four years old during this attack on the other side of the world. So I don’t remember anything. But this museum impressed me. It’s very important to know what happened that day to understand what’s happening in our current world. Still there is war and unnecessary attacks. But why? Nobody knows. It’s all about power.
