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It’s our family’s first visit to New York and we have just three days to tick off a lengthy wish list of must-sees.
All I really know on arrival in this mega metropolis is what’s been gleaned from a guide book and a lifetime of New York references in popular culture. One of the key challenges will be getting around, and the mode of transport we choose must meet the diverse needs of our group (parents with teenage and adult children).
So what are the options? Well, New York taxis are expensive and the art of hailing one is something we don’t have time to master. Our guide book map of the subway system looks bewilderingly labyrinthian, while traversing Manhattan on foot — an area of 59 square kilometres — is a daunting prospect. I find the perfect solution to our travel conundrum in the form of the city’s ubiquitous open-top hop on hop off tour buses.
Sightseeing actually drove the development of the bus as we know it. In 1910, American restaurateur Louis Bush converted a Mack truck into a multi-seat vehicle and began offering tours of Washington, DC. Today there are hop on hop off bus services in operation all over the world — all of which combine the convenience and commentary of a guided tour with the flexibility to alight at designated stops as often as you like.
We opt to travel with Big Bus Tours, which offers a network of well-marked stops (from Harlem in the north, to Battery Park in the south) across two loops. Their schedule sees a bus coming along approximately every twenty minutes. Tickets range in duration from one to three days, and the onboard commentary is informative and entertaining.
Over the course of a single day, we travel on both the downtown and uptown loops, hopping off to explore anything that takes our fancy and hopping back on the next bus when our exploration is through. Perched up high on the open top deck, but still dwarfed by the surrounding buildings, we’re fully immersed in the sights, sounds, and smells of this incredible city.
We’re able to reach must-see sights like the Empire State Building with ease. We also spend a couple of hours entranced by the Ancient Egyptian and Impressionist art sections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There’s even time for an amble along a section of The High Line — a unique public park constructed on a raised section of disused railway track.
Unfortunately perhaps, our trip to New York coincides with an annual free concert in Central Park, the Tunnel to Towers Fun Run, and a visit by the Pope. This triple threat results in inevitable traffic delays. But as we sit enjoying the Indian summer weather and engaging commentary, I can only imagine how much more difficult and how much less fun this would have been had we been left to our own devices.
You won’t get to see everything New York has to offer on a hop on hop off bus tour, but it’s a great introduction to this ‘helluva town’.
For more travel inspiration, visit www.nycgo.com.
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Do you have any tips for taking a New York Hop On Hop Off bus? Leave a comment below.
Additional images: Bigstock
About the writer
Geraldine Massey won her first writing prize when she was eight for a story about travelling with Howard Carter on his expedition to discover Tutankhamun’s tomb. It was an early indicator of her lifelong enthusiasm for writing and travel. An experienced corporate communicator and editor, Geraldine once wrote text for Centrelink payment brochures and is now a writer and editor for WeekendNotes. In recent years she has become a ‘wedding traveller’ — using family weddings in New Zealand, Argentina, and the USA as jumping-off points for further exploration.
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We were in New York for 7 days in the middle of June 2022. My advice would be to research companies before you go and purchase tickets for the hop on hop off buses. We used the company Top View and we purchased night time tour tickets through staff in Times Square. We were told that we could use the ticket anytime we wanted as long as we reserved a slot through the app which we did with the staff present. We booked the slot for two days time at 9pm. I noticed on the app the next day that the ticket had said it expired. I found a staff member from Top View and showed this to them and they said as it is booked for 9pm tomorrow night it will activate then so I thought there would be no problems. The day of our booking arrived and we arrived at the bus stop 30 minutes before departure. I showed them the app and said it is still saying the ticket has expired and I showed them the email of our booking reservation for that night at 9pm. They said that the ticket had expired and that there was nothing we could do and wanted us to spend another $268 to get on the bus. We had been severely misinformed by multiple members of staff and there were many other people having the same issues as us. There was only one member of staff who stayed to help us ands all of the other colleagues we tried to talk to were walking away to sell more tickets rather than assist us. This colleague let us use his phone to contact customer services who could see that we had not used the ticket and it should not have expired and re set this for us but we had to get on a bus an hour later than our booked slot.
Wow, Louise. What a story. We have not heard of that problem before. Thanks for the heads up. Regards, Adam Ford (Editor)