New York City

If you are still planning to buy a MetroCard, stop. As of January 1, 2026, the MTA stopped selling and refilling them entirely, closing out a system that ran for more than 30 years. Existing cards and unlimited passes still work through early 2026, but anyone visiting now should just tap a contactless credit card or phone directly at the turnstile through OMNY, the system that has quietly handled over 90 percent of subway and bus trips for a while now. If you would rather not use a card tied to your bank, OMNY-branded reloadable cards are sold at station vending machines and work exactly like the old MetroCard did, just without the swipe. Old habits die hard in this city, but this is one that is actually gone.

The bigger practical shift for anyone driving in is congestion pricing, which launched in January 2025 and charges most vehicles $9 to enter Manhattan below 60th Street. A federal attempt to kill the program was ruled illegal in March 2026, so it is not going anywhere soon, and the data backing it up is hard to argue with: traffic delays measurably down, vehicle emissions down somewhere in the range of 16 to 22 percent within the first two months. None of that touches subway or bus fares, but if your itinerary involves a rental car or a ride-share into midtown, budget for the toll, it applies automatically via license plate cameras whether you notice the signage or not.

Central Park, at 843 acres, remains the obvious anchor for a first visit, and Bethesda Fountain and Strawberry Fields inside it are worth the walk regardless of how many times you have seen them in movies. But the detail that changes how people actually plan a Statue of Liberty visit is this: Statue City Cruises is the only authorized ferry operator to Liberty Island and Ellis Island, and if you want to climb into the crown itself, that access is a separate reservation on top of the ferry ticket, often booked out two to four months in advance, capped at four tickets per transaction, and involves climbing 354 narrow stairs with no elevator and a minimum height requirement for children. If crown access matters to your trip, book it before you book flights, not after you land. If you skip the crown reservation, the pedestal and museum levels are still accessible on the standard ferry ticket and give you the same base views without the stair climb or the months-ahead planning.

For food, Katz’s Delicatessen earns its reputation honestly, the pastrami is cured and hand-sliced on site and the line moves faster than it looks from the sidewalk. Russ & Daughters, a few blocks away in the same neighborhood, has been doing smoked fish and bagels since 1914 and represents a genuinely different era of the Lower East Side than the trendier spots that have opened around it. Both are worth visiting on the same walk rather than picking one, since they showcase two very different immigrant food traditions that shaped this part of the city.

On lodging, price and location trade off exactly the way you would expect: hotels directly on or near Central Park South command a real premium for the view and the address, while comparable rooms a ten-minute subway ride away in Long Island City or parts of Brooklyn cost meaningfully less and put you one stop from Manhattan rather than a long walk from it. If your budget is tight, staying just outside Manhattan and riding the subway in is a better trade than most first-time visitors assume, given how dense and fast the transit grid actually is.

A few things worth knowing before you go: the Staten Island Ferry is free, runs 24 hours, and gives you a genuinely good view of the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline without paying for a dedicated harbor cruise, a fact that somehow still surprises people who assume every boat ride in this city costs money. Tipping in restaurants and for services is expected, typically 18 to 20 percent, and is not optional the way it might be elsewhere. And if you want city views without the Empire State Building’s midday lines, the Top of the Rock observation deck at Rockefeller Center consistently runs thinner and gives you a skyline that actually includes the Empire State Building in frame, which the Empire State’s own deck obviously cannot.