We are needing help with our plans. We are flying into Philly spending 2 days there and renting a car so we can drive to Atlantic City. Any suggestions??? From Atlantic City we want to drive the coast to NYC. Is this feasible? In New York we want to stay in a central area, Midtown East or ??? Help! We were wondering if we should drive into these areas or go outside and park the car and take a train as we want to keep driving after NY to Boston and NE coast. We will not be driving around for the 4 days we are staying in NYC. If we should where should we park our rental, Stamford or ??? Any suggestions on parking garages and the addresses would help!!!!

Why pay for a rental car for 4 days (plus whatever the parking fees are) when you won;t be using it? Just drop the car when you get to New York and pick up another when you leave.

If fact, if you are going from NYC direct to Boston - don;t even bother picking up the car in NY - but take Amtrak to Boston - and pick up a car there to tour New England.

well,ny traveler, thats a good point but we were hoping to explore on our way to boston and i got a fantastic deal on the rental for the whole trip.

Hi wandering1 - there is a direct freeway from Philly to AC. I'm not sure when you are going but if it's in the summer, plan accordingly as you and about a million other people will be taking this same route on a Friday to the shore area of New Jersey.

I would not recommend you drive the coast to NYC, there isn't an enormous amount of must sees along the way. I would recommend you just take the Parkway up. Again as a precaution, if you are making this trip north on a Sunday in the summer you'll hit massive amounts of traffic.

Check some very recent threads on NYC here because some Fodorites listed the name of a NYC hotel which provides parking. I do know there is a garage at 55th btw. 9th/10th that we often use which is safe. I think the day rate is around $40+.

Hope this helps.

thanks, jodeenyc. we have decided to bag ac and its good to know theres not like a scenic route to nyc so we might as well justshag it up there and save our scenic driving for ne coast. hopefully thats a little different. btw,its the 1st of may that we'll be there.

Do take the train from Philly to NYC, but you'll probably save money if you pick up your rental car in NJ at Newark Airport (check prices to confirm that) rather than someplace like Stamford or New Haven, which is as far as you can get on the commuter railroad Metro North. Needless to say, get the car after NYC. Then you could drive up through the Hudson Valley and through the Berkshires on the way to Boston, spacing out the trip for a couple of days (or go through the scenic parts of Connecticut). If you were going to AC for gambling, go instead to Foxwoods or Mohegan Sun, which are much nicer casinos; both are in Connecticut, not terribly far from Mystic.