Hi Louise, I'm also an Australian and heading to NYC in May. Not on my own though! What is LIC? I bet you must be pleased with the state of the Australian Dollar.

I hope you keep us posted about your adventures.

LIC is Long Island City, my DD and SIL live there. There are some reasonable priced hotels in this area, and only one or two subway stops to Manhattan.

Welcome to you both. What are your plans?

Nelsonian, thanks for clarifying about LIC.

TDudette, thank you for the welcome. I have 10 nights in NYC and will be visiting with 3 girlfriends. We are leaving our husbands at home! We then have 3 nights in Boston, one at Niagara Falls and then 4 nights in Hawaii on the way home. In NYC we are staying at The Inn on 23rd which is a B&B in Chelsea.

We have tickets to The NYC Ballet which is very exciting. We have a subscription to the Australian Ballet and couldn't resist the temptation to attend a ballet in NYC. The NYC Ballet has a very good marketing dept who almost as soon as I booked the tickets posted me a 1/2 price ticket offer to see another ballet so we have booked a 2nd ballet for our last night in NYC. We have booked a lunch at the Boathouse restaurant which sounded like a pleasant way to spend a few hours. We will see a Broadway play/musical but need to get our butts into gear and buy tickets!

Apart from that, we have some general ideas about the usual touristy things to see and we've split them up geographically for each day. I don't like to overplan my days, but I do like to have a list of the things I really want to see.

I'm looking forward to seeing the various galleries and of course, we will do some shopping. I'm not a good shopper, I get fed up with it very quickly, almost as soon as something doesn't fit! But it's such a good opportunity at the moment with the Australian dollar now just past parity with the US dollar, and I do know that clothes in the US are less expensive than here in Australia and of course, the range of clothes will be different and no doubt more varied.

I've had some great help already from Fodor's contributors and will post some more questions over the next week or two.

My hub and I loved NYC so much we returned for 2 more visits. There is so much to see and enjoy.

You have probably read this advice already but do plan your major things for first thing in the a.m.. Getting to Statue of Liberty involved a lot of security and standing in line-same with Ellis Island.

Will wait for more questions and am looking forward to your trip report!

Is someone selling shares of Niagara Falls in Oz? Is the Maid of the Mist giving kick backs in Sydney?

I think the NY'ers are a but astonished that people would travel 400 miles just to see Niagara Falls. But it seems to be the travel craze of Ozzies visiting the states.

For a one time only trip, I think the time and money would be better spent elsewehre.

Hi Aduchamp, Niagara Falls is already booked. It's only a short, inexpensive flight from Boston and one of the girls really wanted to see it so we decided 'what the heck!'. The upside is that we then fly from Toronto to Vancouver and on to Honolulu and don't have to go through LAX again which doesn't seem to be getting many good reports.

Plus, Australians are used to covering vast distances for travel, so this is nothing compared to the 21 hours that it will take us from Sydney - NYC!

Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.

I loved Niagara Falls! A friend from Buffalo took me there in the 1970s and we found the Canadian side to be more attractive. Maid in the Mist boat ride was great fun.

If you have the time, a nearby town, Niagara on the Lake is very nice.

I guess NF is getting to be like the Leaning Tower-but they are both amazing and not to be missed if possible.