Itinerary: New York City
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of.
When I was younger I found the hustle and bustle of metropolis living to be very attractive. I grew up in a quiet country setting, and the idea of being around more people all the time sounded nice. As the years passed, and having moved several times to both big and smaller areas, I’ve become the type who enjoys big cities sparingly. Suburbia now gives me what I need — the best of both worlds.
I traveled to New York City a few times in the past couple years, and it oddly gives me that sense of reprieve. The city has an energy that can only be explained by visiting it. Instead of escaping to somewhere quieter, I found my version of a reset by trading in the familiar for more noise, more people, and more city. It’s also a temporary reminder of how others live, which is one of the great benefits of travel.
Here’s my favorite way to spend a day in the Big Apple.
MORNING
There is a particular kind of magic that belongs to New York City in the morning — before the horns start and the sidewalks fill, when the city feels almost like it could be yours. The best place to meet that feeling is at The Thompson Hotel Central Park, a sleek, well-appointed base camp steps from the park where the rooms are calm and the address is unbeatable. Wake up without rushing. Today, you have the whole city ahead of you.
Before anything else, coffee. Walk a few blocks to Zibetto, a proper Italian espresso bar — the kind where you stand at the counter, order a doppio, and drink it the way it’s meant to be drunk: fast, strong, and with nothing to prove. It’s a genuine slice of Milan on Sixth Avenue, and it sets the tone for the day.
With caffeine in hand, step into Central Park. Whether you run or wander, it doesn’t much matter — the park rewards both. At this hour the paths belong to joggers, dog walkers, and the occasional chess player already setting up a board. Follow the loop, cut through the Ramble, or simply trace the path wherever it leads. Central Park is one of the great feats of urban design in the world, and it earns its reputation every single morning.
When the legs need a rest and the stomach starts to argue, head to Liberty Bagels. A proper New York bagel — dense, chewy, blistered from a water bath — is not a sandwich roll with ideas above its station. It’s its own thing entirely. Get it toasted. Get it loaded. Eat it on the go like a true New Yorker.
AFTERNOON
Take the subway south. The 9/11 Memorial sits at the footprint of the original Twin Towers in Lower Manhattan, and no matter how many times you visit — whether it’s your first or your fifth — it stops you in your tracks. The twin reflecting pools are enormous and perfectly still, each one an absence that somehow says everything words cannot. The names etched into the bronze parapets make the loss immediate and human. Give it the time it deserves. Wander through the oak trees. Let the city noise fall away for a while.
From the memorial, walk north into SoHo. The neighborhood transitions gradually — first the glass towers of the Financial District, then the cobblestoned blocks and cast-iron facades that make SoHo one of the most architecturally interesting stretches in the city. Galleries sit beside boutiques, boutiques beside coffee shops, and all of it under those gorgeous nineteenth-century buildings. It’s the kind of neighborhood you can drift through for an hour without meaning to. When hunger reasserts itself, find your way to Prince Street Pizza. The square Sicilian slice, topped with spicy pepperoni cups that curl and crisp at the edges, has earned its legend. Eat outside if you can. People-watch. This is the city at its most alive.
EVENING
Head back uptown to the Thompson, clean up, and make the switch from explorer to something a little more presentable. Tonight calls for it. Via Brasil, the Brazilian steakhouse tucked quietly in Midtown, is one of those restaurants that feels like a discovery even when you’re not the first to find it. The rodízio service — grilled meats carved tableside in an endless parade — is the kind of dinner that makes you wish you’d arrived hungrier. The caipirinhas don’t hurt either.
After dinner, it’s time for the main event. If Broadway is on your list — and it always should be — Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is worth every minute of its nearly four-hour runtime. Staged in two acts that move like theater magic, the production is technically breathtaking, with illusions and staging choices that make you genuinely wonder how they did it. For anyone, like me, who grew up with Harry, Hermione, and Ron, watching those characters return — older, flawed, and deeply recognizable — is something close to emotional. It’s the best kind of Broadway experience: spectacle that earns its sentiment.
When the curtain falls and you spill back into the Midtown night, the city will still be very much awake. Walk back to the Thompson through the electric pulse of it all — the neon, the crowds, the feeling that every other person on this sidewalk has also just experienced something. There is nowhere quite like New York, and there is no better way to know that than at the end of a day spent inside it.