New York City is one of the most exciting cities in the world, but it can be hard on a budget. If you are ‘doing’ the city to celebrate a special occasion, you might want to intersperse your extravagant excursions with these cheaper — but equally fun — options.
Freebies
Very often, theaters and performance venues will give away their remaining tickets in order to have a fuller house, and hopefully make some money by selling those lucky ticket recipients drinks and snacks once they arrive. Keep your eyes open for touts offering freebies to performances — you might get to see a new band, enjoy a movie you wouldn’t have otherwise seen, or watch a skilled and polished stage performance.
Central Park
Explore Central Park — it is an immense piece of real estate that includes several restaurants, a zoo and miles and miles of walkways and cycle tracks. Enjoy a picnic on the grass before getting ready for a fun and action-packed night out!
Mini Golf at Pier 25
Spend a long lazy evening exploring Pier 25, and playing your way around the island’s only 18-hole mini-golf course! If that is not your bag, there are sand volleyball pitches, delicious seasonal food stalls and, of course, the wonderful views out over the water.
Theater District
Explore the theater district to see what shows are on and see if you can buy last-minute tickets to coveted shows. Sometimes, corporations buy blocks of tickets, and when they cannot be used, they release them back to the box-office to try and offset their costs. You might pay full-price, but you can also get lucky and pick up tickets for a discount and enjoy great last minute seats for a fraction of the price if you had planned ahead!
Chinatown
Wander through Chinatown and check out the markets and vendors before popping into a Chinese restaurant to sample a huge variety of delicious and exotic dishes for much less than you might expect to pay.
Stroll the Brooklyn Promenade
This cantilevered walkway arches over the expressway, offering a tranquil oasis from the hustle and bustle of the city below it. It is a great place to rest for a while, enjoying and perhaps photographing the wonderful waterside views before descending and rejoining the busyness of the street for whatever comes next.
Times Square
Best known from the New Year celebrations, Times Square is surprising small in real life, but it is still packed with plenty of stores to window-shop, eccentric people to observe and photograph (some may expect payment for photos), and cheap and cheerful street food to try out.
New York Pizza
Grab a slice of New York’s legendary pizza, and ignore the grumpy comments from anyone from Chicago — the city which claims to have the best pizza in the USA! Gooey cheese, tangy tomato and truly enormous slices that are best eaten with care else the toppings fall onto your shirtfront and make you look a mess!
Upright Citizens Brigade
Hunt down this quirky and super-talented band of performers in their theater, and see if you can grab a ticket for about $5 — an absolute bargain for New York, with high quality performance guaranteed.
Go On TV!
If you have ever wanted to be a studio audience member, New York is the place to do it. Many shows offer free or cheap tickets in advance while others open the doors at a set time and then close them once the audience is full. Prebook tickets for your favorite shows if you have a preference, or simply show up at the right place and hope to get a seat.
Get the best of New York by doing as many of these activities as you can while based in a party bus to get you around and give you somewhere to rest when you need to refresh yourself for a moment. A party bus will make any New York excursion better and the driver will know the fastest ways to get to all the great must-see places! See about cheap party bus rental NYC here!
