You can tap any contactless payment (credit card or phone) on MTA turnstiles/buses (within NYC) to pay fare without an MTA card. You need a ticket from a machine for any LIRR, NJT or PATH transit.
($18.70/person one-way, $33 round-trip)
(Grand central is the closest NYC stop, Bryant Park can work too)
1/hour
NJ transit: $2.90 for a bus/train to/from Penn station + $8 for NJ transit/AirTrain
(if you don’t have much luggage, it’s a 20 minute walk to Penn station)
Depending on time of day for frequency, #34 bus drops you off directly in front of our house
From JFK (reverse to go to JFK):
(from JFK) E train to Fulton and 6 train up
(from JFK) [New!] LIRR to Grand Central and 6 train down
on 14th street (better price and portions than every other halal truck in the city, open super late night, been there at 4am myself)
If you have the stamina, go out to Flushing (end of the 7 train) for plenty of authentic + cheap chinese food. If not, Manhattan Chinatown is seriously dense with hard-to-go-wrong options.
A great singular stopover on a walk to anywhere else is the
If you are willing to go to Journal Square, NJ (40 min trip via PATH), plenty of authentic Indian options (at almost-authentic Indian prices) a short walk from the station. If not,
, and they also happen to be quite cheap. My partner and I would sometimes take a train there first thing on a summer weekday morning (lines can be long on weekends), take a stroll through Riverside park, circle back to the
with ANC headphones to do a bit of work before walking through the north side of central park, which is much nicer and more natural than the touristy-er lawn-filled south/middle.
Get fresh-made pasta, sauce and protein at the Eataly near Madison Sq Park and make premium pasta at home for relatively low effort, follow up with their tiramisu, better than at many specialty bakeries.
My anti-reccs:
any mexican food in Manhattan
any entree in Little Italy. While nice to walk through, all the restaurants are tourist-traps. Desserts and groceries are fine.
majority of the Indian restaurants immediately near my apartment (Murray Hill aka Curry Hill aka little India) are middling and a bit overpriced, however
offers chaat, which is an interesting street food experience (sanitized for a medium fancy american restaurant setting ofc) that is not easy to find elsewhere in the US, so may be worth a visit.
Workspaces
Looking for a cafe or alternate workspace for a change of pace? Check out Keerthik’s favorites for a pick (let me know if you want to add to this list!):