With strong euro traveling to New York has become more affordable for Europeans, but still very expensive for Americans. New York, being the most expensive city in the country, can easily wipe your bank account off if you travel unprepared. To travel to New York on a budget requires some research, starting with choosing place to stay to finding great inexpensive restaurants to getting cheap tickets for Broadway shows. To save on a hotel in New York is not easy, however quite possible. Besides relatively cheap popular chain hotels, such as Best Western and Comfort Inn, the city has unique inexpensive hotels to choose from, as well as, hostels and bed and breakfasts. Cheap hotels in New York can be found practically in all neighborhoods. However, if you want to stay right in touristic areas, such as Times Square or Theater District, prepare to pay more than if you choose an inexpensive hotel in residential neighborhoods, such as Upper West Side or Lower Manhattan. Manhattan is well connected to other New York City boroughs by public transportation, therefore if your traveling budget is small, it is not a bad idea to choose a place to stay in Brooklyn or Queens, where the prices for the hotel room are much cheaper than in Manhattan.

New York City restaurant scene is full of inexpensive restaurants, particularly with exotic authentic cuisines, so you can try interesting food and not spend a lot of money. You even can go to four-star restaurants in New York on a budget. If you go there for lunch instead of dinner, you can get lunch menu prices for dinner quality entrees.New York City offers a lot of free entertainment for budget travelers, from free concerts and theater in Central Park to free exhibition and museums. You even can get tickets for all Broadway shows with 25-50% off the box office price. On the day of the performance visit TKTS on Duffy Square, the center island of 47th Street between Broadway and 7th Avenue.If you are traveling to New York on a budget, you have to carefully choose the place to stay. After all, airfares and hotels usually swallow the biggest part of your traveling budget. New York City tourism office estimated that 46 million people visited New York City in 2017. Therefore, on the contrary to many other cities, New York City hotels don’t have low or high season. People come to New York all year round. One solution is to find a hotel somewhere close but outside of Manhattan. New York City boroughs are well connected by public transportation. So, if you stay in a hotel in Queens or Brooklyn, it would take only 30-40 minutes to get to New York by subway. But, if you want to stay in Manhattan, it requires some time and research to find a budget hotel.

New York budget hotels could be spotted around Manhattan. However, there are some areas where it is easier to find a cheap hotel in New York. A lot of cheap hotels are concentrated on Upper West Side and around Times Square and Theater District. Upper West Side is a residential neighborhood, but full of restaurants, bars and shopping temptations. Just 15-20 minutes on a bus or subway and you are on Times Square, just 5-10 minutes walk and you are in Central Park. Natural History Museum with famous Rose Center for Earth and Space is right here. Lincoln Center, home for Metropolitan Opera and New York City ballet, is here as well as Columbus Circle with beautiful fountain installation and Time Warner building.

If you want to stay close to Times Square and Theater District, there are a lot of cheap hotels to choose from. These areas are the most touristic areas in New York and full of theaters, restaurants, bars, book shops, writing rooms and nightlife spots. Theater district restaurants offer pre-fixed early bird menus, which are in most cases quite good and inexpensive. Central Park, Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, Fifth Avenue and Museum of Modern Art are just 10 minutes walk away. What can be better than staying right in the vibrant Times Square and not to break your bank account?

For those who like Bohemian atmosphere, Greenwich Village in Manhattan is a right place to be. For more than a century, this area has been a Mecca to the creative, rebellious and Bohemian. Home to New York University, Washington Square Park and annual Halloween parade, Greenwich Village has a carnival atmosphere year round. The area is full of small restaurants and cafes, shops and jazz clubs. Washington Square Park is a regular hangout spot for students, musicians, chess players and tourists.


Lower East Side recently became one of the trendiest neighborhoods of Manhattan. With renovated lofts and new buildings, trendy restaurants and night clubs, the area is a very popular night spot among New Yorkers and tourists. If you came to New York to party, why not to stay right where the party is? Conveniently located within walking distance of Soho, Chinatown, Little Italy, East Village and Financial District, Lower East Side neighborhood is a great area to stay for all kind of budget travelers, from business travelers to tourists.

There is much useful information in your assessment.

First time tourists should know the subway is safe and usually an efficient way to get around town, so they needn't stay in Times Square.

The West Village is anything but Bohemian. Those days are long over. A townhouse on East 10th Street was sold for $37 million last week. It is upscale and the cheaper restaurants are disappearing.

ditto.

Just one thing --- your first sentence is a bit misleading. >>With strong euro traveling to New York has become more affordable for Europeans, but still very expensive for Americans.

And cheap as in "cheap hotels" is a relative term. Cheap for nyc is not the general definition of cheap elsewhere. Europeans are often stunned to find you can't get a room in Manhattan for 100e or 100pounds at most times of the year. The single most important thing to do for a budget trip to nyc is pick a time of year when hotel prices are low, like Jan/Feb.

White the OP has given many good and helpful suggestions, there is one misstatement that should be corrected. The OP wrote that you can get discounted tickets to all Broadway shows at TKTS in Times Squares. That is not true. Lest anyone think that they'll up pick a discounted ticket for Hamilton or other sold-out shows such as Harry Potter, Bruce Springstein, Come Away From and others.....Forget it! It's still a good place to get discounted tickets for a lot of shows.....but not the sold-old ones!

Ooops, sorry for the typos. Obviously, the second-last word should be "sold-out," not "sold-old"!

NYC does have more months of "high season" than most cities, but it does have a low season - January.

Here's a mini trip report I did of my January 2016 trip - New York City in January – what a deal!


The photos are now at: https://andiamo.zenfolio.com/f430600618

Hi to JuanKoss. If you aren't a professional photographer already, you might want to consider it.

What’s a writing room?

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What nonsense, have you seen how much a hotel room in a major European city eg London costs?

One of the best kept secrets in NYC!