Best way to drive from Cape Cod to NYC
 

I'm considering a trip to Cape Cod, MA and then a few days in New York City in early April. What's the best plan for driving a rental car? Is there a good place outside NYC to drive to and then take a train/subway/taxi into Manhattan? How long will it take....5 hours? How bad is the traffic? Input appreciated.

April won't be too bad for Cape tourist traffic. The thing you'll have to worry about is heavy highway traffic, in the times around 9am and around 5pm, if you are driving on a weekday.

You could drive to one of the CT towns on the commuter line, and take the train in (amtrak or Metro North commuter train). New Haven has a covered parking garage and we use it often for getting into the city this way. Or some city to the west of N Haven, like Bridgeport or Stamford.

Probably more like 4 hours from Hyannis to north end of Manhattan, if the traffic is light.

New Haven is the first town where you can take Metro North into the city, and it's a bit over 2 hours. But you could take Amtrak (for much more money) from Providence. or even from Boston. If you don't want to drive into the city, it's not a bad idea to consider Amtrak or (even better) the Limoliner bus into the city from Boston. Or there are myriad dirt-cheap options now like Bolt Bus or Megabus from Boston to NYC if you want to save money.

It takes me over 6 hours to drive all the way to Provincetown from NYC, so you can probably estimate how long it would take from somewhere closer to NYC.

One of the considerations about whether or not to drive a rental car is: Where are you going from New York City? Will you need the car after that? If so, might you be better off taking public transportation to NYC and then renting a car after your stay there?

The best plan depends on how many you are, where you're leaving from and a bunch of other issues you haven't shared with us like cost of 1 way drop offs etc. For the most accurate recos, tell us everything you'd need to consider.