New York

New York is a walking city that most first-time visitors underestimate. The distances look enormous on a map and then turn out to be twenty blocks, which is a mile, which is half an hour with plenty to look at on the way. Above 14th Street the streets run on the grid laid out in 1811, numbered and predictable, so you can navigate most of Manhattan without ever opening your phone. Below it, in the Village and further downtown, the old street pattern survives and the logic breaks down entirely, which is its own kind of pleasure.

The landmarks are where you expect them: Central Park, the Met and MoMA, the Broadway theaters, the High Line built on a disused elevated railway, the Brooklyn Bridge walkway. What people tend to remember afterwards is the ordinary texture in between. A slice counter that has been there for sixty years, a bodega cat, a subway platform performance that is better than it has any right to be. The subway itself runs 24 hours a day, which almost no other system in the world does, and it is the reason the city can behave the way it does at two in the morning.

Fall, from September to early November, is the best weather of the year: clear, cool and dry. Spring from April to June is nearly as good. July and August are hot and humid enough to reshape a trip around air conditioning, and hotel rates soften a little because of it. From late November through New Year the city is at its busiest and most expensive, holiday windows and tree and all. January and February are cold and grey, and the cheapest months to sleep here by a wide margin.

Getting around is easiest on the subway, which runs around the clock, and you just tap a contactless card or phone at the turnstile. Manhattan is also very walkable, and Citi Bike docks are on most corners. The water is part of the network too: the Staten Island Ferry passes the Statue of Liberty on its way across the harbor, and NYC Ferry boats link Manhattan with Brooklyn and Queens. From JFK, AirTrain JFK connects to the subway.