Laurelovebooks

Hey everyone, thanks for the advice. I will definitely update you all on what happens with this trip!!!

Question: Has anyone heard or been to an Upright Citizens Brigade improve show?

IMDonehere

Upright Citizens usually has fine performances.

Tabernash2

IMDonehere, thank you for the great list of cheap eats in NYC. I'm saving for a future trip.

Laurelovebooks, good luck with your plan. You're young and can manage it on the cheap. It will be an adventure.

Laurelovebooks

Update: We are driving from Georiga. My Aunt is letting us park my car at her house that is about a 30 minutes train ride from the city, so I am parking my car there and we are staying at a hostel near central park. Is northern central park any different than southern central park? Unfortunately, 2 of the people in this trip really want to go to Rhode Island (don't ask me why... grr) so we are only staying in New York for 2 nights. Going to the museum(s), central park for picnic, sightseeing, and maybe Statue of Liberty if we can. Headed to Newport, RI, so any suggestions on what to there is greatly appreciated if anyone has been.

Thank you all for the tips and suggestions and everything. Especially IMdonehere, that list is beautiful.

IMDonehere

I see by your name you might truly love to spend time at the Strand Book Store.

http://www.strandbooks.com/

sassy_cat

Best advice don't bother with Newport, RI for this trip! Crazy to come all the way to NYC for 2 days and then move onto RI...it will be a complete letdown. Try to talk sense into these people.

If you're asking what to do in Newport, RI... I really think you should leave that up to the 2 people that have suggested this option. Surely they must have a reason to want to go there!

Laurelovebooks

I know some of you have reservations about our budget, so here is the plan and where we got that number:

The trip is 6 nights, 3 nights are free since we are staying with family. New York will cost $90 per person for 2 nights, staying at a hostel, already booked. The other place we are staying is $15 per person for the night.

Fun: A lot of what we are doing in New York is free (Central Park, Time Square), UCB is $5, the museums $10, $15 buffer for NYC, $35 for the other locations we are going to (most things we are doing are sightseeing or free things).

Gas: $45 per person for the roundtrip, calculated with a road trip website using current gas prices and my specific car

Food: Approx. $16 per day (breakfast and lunch is cheap, oatmeal and sandwiches, then going out to eat for dinner), with a $30 buffer (drinks, snacks, random bakeries)

Subway: $30, didn't know too much about this, but since we need to get into the city from my family's home where I am leaving my car (30 minute subway commute) Looked it up, about $20 for roundtrip to get into and out of city to where car is

TOTAL: $355

nytraveler

$16 will not buy you much in NYC.

Yes you can grab a coffee and egg sandwich on the run for a couple of dollars. But even in a basic deli (sit down) or coffee shop a sandwich, soda and tax/tip will be more than $10 (higher if you want turkey or shrimp of whatever). A Mickey D's meal is about $8 or so.

Sounds like all you will be able to afford is a hot dog from a cart.

And not sure how much you will enjoy Central Park at that date. We had 7" of snow yesterday and it is supposed to snow again Tues, Thurs and who know how many more times?

Agree that Newport may not be great that time of year. You need to find out if the "cottages" will be open when you are there it may only be weekends this time of year. And it is likely to be even colder there than in NYC.

Tabernash2

It's your car? Then tell the RI people No. Unless one of them wants to drive their car.

sf7307

Food: Approx. $16 per day (breakfast and lunch is cheap, oatmeal and sandwiches, then going out to eat for dinner), with a $30 buffer (drinks, snacks, random bakeries)

This is not doable in my opinion, and I think you can eat cheaply in NY (but cheaply in NY is different from cheaply elsewhere). $16 will get you breakfast and lunch, but not dinner, too.

Elizabeth_S

Lauralovesbooks - if you go back to your high end budget of $400 you'll be well covered off and I admire you for the research and budget planning you've done. Your eyes are wide open about what you're doing and the money you have to spend.

I smile at the responses you've received - good grief you're 21 years old and will have a great time! I did Europe on $10/day.

diosraw

It sounds good to hear that you are planning for a trip with friends. Actually, I also plan for the trip with my friends in Destin Florida. Its really fun and its a good budget trip offered by grandboulevard

WillTravel

Send the Rhode Island-bound people off to there on the bus or in a rental car, and they can meet you back in NYC. Crazy.

Food can be done easily enough with a little sacrifice. Go to a grocery store. Buy some nutritious bread (or maybe get it at a deli) and peanut butter and cheese. Buy some apples. That's good enough for 2 meals per day. Then either "splurge" on dinner at one of the places in IAmDoneHere's list, or buy some roast beef or tinned fish for dinner.

nytraveler

Europe on $10 a day? In what decade?

If one is from a small town prices at budget places may be 50% less than in NYC - and esp young people may not understand what choices they will be faced with. If they choose to do an on the move breakfast of coffee and egg sandwich, buy food at a market for sandwiches (NOT sandwiches made at a deli) and eat from hot dog carts they can feed themselves for $16. But it won;t by anything where you can sit down and in March picnics outdoors can be very chilly/hard work.

And agree that the Newport people should manage that portion of the trip themselves - not drag everyone else along on what may be a fruitless trip. (I did a quick check and a couple of the mansions are open in the second half of Mar - but for many it is too early in the season - and the beach walk could be bitingly cold.)

SandyBrit

Laurelovebook:

This is a fun thread to read and I am sure will be of help to others on a strict budget.

Amen to WillTravel - purchase bread/rolls, cheese and apples. Perfect lunch.

Please start a new thread with your trip report. Enjoy NYC and I hope you get to go back many many times.

IMDonehere: That is a fabulous list. May I suggest you post it on a thread by itself. Probably make it easier for some to find using the search feature.

Sandy

nelsonian

Agree that this will be a great trip. Make you own sandwiches, eat fruit, have a bigger meal in the evening. It can be done. We have done trips like this many many years ago. Some great memories. I would forget about going on to Rhode Island though.

Tabernash2

Remember that most people don't really eat three full meals a day.

You can have a balanced meal late morning, and have dinner at night. Nothing wrong with McD's breakfast sandwiches-- egg, cheese & meat, for little more than $1. Keep some fruit, cheese, peanut butter and bread on hand, too, and you won't starve.

Don't go to R.I. this time.

Have fun.

Laurelovebooks

Thank you all for the comments, the helpful ones are great and the others are entertaining

We plan on buying all the breakfast, lunch, and snack food in my hometown, where it will be a lot cheaper than up north. Breakfast is going to be oatmeal, cereal, breakfast bars, fruit, what we eat normally. Lunch is sandwiches, etc. I don't like spending a lot of money on food, and I don't like coffee, and I tend to stick with drinking water, so I don't anticipate spending outrageous amounts on each meal, except for a splurge dinner or two (or bakeries).

The Rhode Island part is nixed, thankfully, and New York has been extended a day.

I will definitely do a trip update, with cost and all that, afterwards, including the other stops we are making along the way.

Elizabeth_S I would love to here more about how you did Europe on $10 a day. I want to go this summer with a friend.

And I hope their is still snow at central park when we get there. Being from the south, snow is a novelty, and still fun!!

sf7307

Lauralovebooks, we did Europe on LESS than $10 a day, but that was in 1972, as I suspect Elizabeth's trip was.

Here's how -- fully 1/3 of the nights we were there (and we were there for 10 full weeks), we slept for free, either in train stations, in parks, or with people we knew. The rest of the nights we stayed in dorm rooms or private rooms in hostels, or in very cheap pensions (often only $1.00 a night).

Breakfast was often included. There was no such thing as Starbucks so no splurging (aka wasting) money on lattes and mochas. Lunch was bread and cheese purchased at a market. Dinner was in a restaurant, but just by way of example, there were restaurants in Spain where we could have 3 courses for $0.50 (that is NOT a typo!).

And we almost never paid for sightseeing - if it cost money, we didn't do it (and we were never short of things to see and do either).

So yes, it can be done, with a lot of ingenuity! That entire trip (again, 10 full weeks) cost us $800 per person, and that included round-trip airfare from NY to London, round-trip airfare to Israel from Zurich/Athens, and a 3 month eurail pass.

nytraveler

For perspective my 19 year old DD and 2 friends spend 6 weeks 2 summers ago. They were not on a program as described above. But stayed in very modest hotels - but with AC and breakfast, had very light lunch and modest sit down dinner. No Shopping but they did pay for entries to all of the major sights. Including student nightlife (cheap beer or wine in a student cafe or club some nights) plus local transit and eruopean intercity trains - it cost them about $8 k each.

You can definitely do it for that if you do hostels without AC and use those dreadful long-distance buses versus trains - but costs for most everything (even the tube or metro) is about 1/3 more than in the US (meaning 1/3 more than NYC in many large cities) so $10 won;t do it.

I do recall the first time I went - at 19 with BF in 1975. We found a great hotel not far north of Barcelona on the coast - not upscale but pleasant with a pool and direct beach access. It was about $10 per night for a room - with balcony overlooking the sea - but that included breakfast and dinner. However our hotel in Paris (on the left bank at $6 per night) was a disaster - the toilet was 2 floors down and when I went to use it was apparently occupied by a junkie shooting up. the next day we moved to the Hilton (then about $40 per night) so I could have a hot shower and decent bed - and didn't have to sleep on top of the covers on a layer of clothes. (And we washed all our clothes the next day too.)

It is certainly possible to travel on a budget - but there are times when the sacrifices are too great.