New York is an amazing place. A world class city full of diverse cultures, people, food and things to do. There are so many great cheap NYC entertainment options, it’s hard to know where to start when planning your visit.
Below are ideas and some of the resources we used to decide what we wanted to do while in the area. This is not a list of specific things to do, but a list of resources to help you explore the types of activities that appeal to you most. These resources will save you a ton of time and money, so you can stretch your travel budget that much further. Great cheap NYC entertainment.
We love to explore new places by walking around. It’s amazing all the interesting things you’ll see when moving at a leisurely pace. Street scenes and the differences in the neighborhoods. Street art, parks to be explored, shops to duck into and cafes for sipping a drink while watching life swirl around you. Sidewalk produce stands with great fruits and veggies for cheap, cheap.
We highly recommend spending some time walking around and seeing what surprises you discover. Pick a neighborhood that sounds intriguing. Then go there. You won’t be disappointed.
There are lots of great parks sprinkled across the five boroughs, and, if the weather’s good, they can be great fun to explore. We spent time in Central Park and the New York Botanical Garden walking amongst trees and feeling like we were miles away from the big city, hiking in the woods.
If you’re in New York in April or May, take a detour to see some cherry blossoms. I found some really great ones on Roosevelt Island, in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, in Flushing Meadow in Corona Park, and in the parks around Columbia University.
Also, the many old piers along the waterfronts that have been turned into parks are worth visiting.
So it’s the age old question: Mets or Yankees. We elected to go to a Yankees game because they were playing the Texas Rangers, Garrett’s old “home team”. Sometimes you’ve just gotta see your old team play. Even if they’re really not that good at the moment.
Getting to Yankee Stadium was easy, and it’s a really nice stadium. We could have just as easily gone to a Mets game, and the tickets would have been way cheaper. There’s also a minor league team on Staten Island, within walking distance of the ferry. If you love baseball, NYC’s a great place to visit!
Museums are also a favorite of ours. Over the years we’ve been to too many amazing NYC museums to count, and we always walk away in great appreciation of the artists, collectors, benefactors, curators and everyone else who contributed to making these institutions the best in the world.
If museums are your thing, look at TimeOut’s list of the best NYC museums when deciding which to see. Many have free or reduced entry fee times that will help you stretch your travel budget while expanding your view of the world.
You can talk with and listen to many of the best minds in the world without breaking your budget in New York City. Here’s a current list of free talks, lectures, discussion, seminars, conferences and other activities you can take advantage of.
Thought Gallery provides a unique resource for getting a handle on the brainy side of New York. Their site offers coverage of the smartest goings on in all five boroughs, from talks and panels to readings and tours. Whether your passion is art, science, literature, or the city itself, Thought Gallery will help you make the most of the mind of New York.
Free Tours by Foot offers tours all over NYC, and they are just what they say: free walking tours. Each one usually takes 90 minutes to three hours. At the end of the tour, you pay your guide whatever you think their service was worth.
We’ve taken Free Tours by Foot in many cities, and we always enjoy them. They help you start to understand this place you’re visiting and provide answers to your new-to-the-area questions. Whenever I travel to a new location, I try to take a FreeTourbyFoot during my first few days in the area. There simply is no better way to quickly learn about the place you’re visiting.
In NYC we’ve taken the Bushwick Street Art tour, Lower East Side Food tour, thrift shopping (Yes, this tour is great!), SOHO / Little Italy / Chinatown tour, and much more. All of the tours were top notch. Much like the tours conducted by City Guides in San Francisco. Great content. Friendly guides. You get some exercise, and, if you decide that tour’s not for you, you can just leave without paying a cent. They can’t be beat.
FreeToursbyFoot also has audio tours you can download of Central Park, Lower Manhattan, the 9/11 and World Trade Center, Greenwich Village food tour, Harlem and much more.
While FreeToursbyFoot offers over 30 different tours, in a city the size of New York there are bound to be lots of interesting things not covered, or not covered as well, by those tours. That’s where specialty tours come in. Because they give you a deeper understanding of the history and current state of whatever the tour topic is, they really bring out the flavor of a place. If there’s a particular thing you want to explore while you’re in the city, by all means, spend a little more to take a specialty tour. You won’t regret it.
I took two specialty tours that really stood out. The first was a tour of a Lower East Side tenement building. Hosted by The Tenement Museum, these tours take you inside restored tenement buildings and tell you the stories of the people who lived there. You’ll learn what life was like for immigrants to New York in the 19th and 20th centuries. These tours always receive top ratings on TripAdvisor, Google, etc. They do an outstanding job.
Big Apple Jazz’ Harlem Juke Joint Tour is a gem! Our host for the evening was an effervescent jazz singer who lives and works in the neighborhood and knows everybody. On a freezing night in late April, she took us to two venues we hadn’t found in all our own research. Both venues were great. In fact we later went back to one of the venues, it was that good.
We’re putting together a posting on some of our favorite musical finds, and we’ll include mention of both of these places in there. So stop back. There’s more to come.
Want to see a live taping of a favorite show? 1iota is your number one source for tickets. They’re the major ticket distributor for shows both In LA and NYC.
In New York you can get free tickets to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, The View and more. The shows generally release show dates for ticket lotteries once or twice a week, depending on the show. We went to two shows and had a blast.
You can reserve free tickets to see a taping of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon by going to Tonightshowtix.com. All available dates will be listed on the Calendar.
Getting tickets to Saturday Night Live as a visitor is more difficult that it is for other shows. The 2022-2023 season ticket lottery will only be open during August 2022. To enter the lottery, send an email to SNLTickets@NBCUNI.com. Be sure to include why you want to be a part of the studio audience. If you are selected, you will receive tickets for a random show date and time. Entering the lottery does not guarantee tickets, and you will only be notified in the event that you are chosen.
Didn’t get selected? There will also be a virtual standby reservation line, available by email only. The email address is SNL.Standby@NBCUNI.com, and it will only be open from 10am to 5pm EST the Thursday before the show. Any emails received before or after that window will not be considered.
Include in your email your first and last name, and the first and last names of up to 3 other people who will be joining you. You will receive a reservation number by email if you’re one of the first 500 standby requests. Responses can take up to 6 hours. If you received a reply to your request with a reservation number, check in at the in-person standby line at the 49th Street NBC Studios Marquee between 6pm and 7pm the Friday of a show week with your reservation.
If seeing a Broadway show is on your list of things to do, go to Broadway for Broke People for the scoop on how to get lottery, rush and other low-priced tickets to current shows. We used this resource a lot, and it saved us both time and money.
In addition to the resources listed above there are a few great resources that include many types of cheap NYC entertainment and activities. Below are two of the best for discovering ways to maximize your enjoyment while minimizing your spending while in NYC.
Club Free Time. New York offers an incredible variety of quality inexpensive or free entertainment and education offerings, and one of the best resources for learning about these events is Club Free Time. As Australian Traveller says, ‘Club Free Time is a brilliant resource for no-charge music concerts, film screenings, theatre productions and gallery exhibitions. It also offers free off-Broadway show tickets and extra secret free stuff to its members…’
TripAdvisor has a list of the great cheap NYC entertainment, too.
That’s it. Ways to identify the great cheap NYC entertainment that will make your vacation special. Enjoy your time in NYC. But, before then, enjoy your time dreaming about and exploring all the interesting things you’ll do in the Big Apple!
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