New York City travel info

At eleven at night, sit on the red steps in the middle of Times Square and the screens on every side make it hard to tell whether it's night or day. A yellow cab leans on its horn twice, and every time a train passes underneath, a gust of warm air pushes up through the subway grate at your feet. The city really doesn't sleep: the subway runs 24 hours and the pizza counters are still lit at 3am.

Walk a few blocks and it changes face. On the High Line in Chelsea, wild grasses grow between old freight rails. On the Upper West Side, people sit on brownstone stoops with a coffee and a dog. Cross the East River to DUMBO and stand on the cobblestones of Washington Street, and the Empire State Building sits neatly framed inside the steel of the Manhattan Bridge; people queue in the middle of the road from early morning for that one photo.

You mostly eat with your hands: a pizza slice folded in half, a bagel with a thick layer of cream cheese, a pastrami sandwich stacked too tall to bite, chicken over rice from a corner halal cart drowned in white sauce. The prices and the tipping take some getting used to, but a $3 subway ride gets you almost anywhere.

John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)

Newark Liberty International Airport (New Jersey) (EWR)

LaGuardia Airport (LGA)