New York City

New York City is such a huge cultural and tourism icon it is very hard to effectively write a great set of New York travel tips. New York City remains one of the world's great cities and most significant business addresses with tens of thousands of corporate headquarters and company offices. The New York Stock Exchange and Wall Street rank among the most important business venues in the world. New York is also a tourist mecca with restaurants and lodging of almost every conceivable type as well as globally known attractions like the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. I have not been to New York City in many years, though I was lost in the Statue of Liberty as a kid. I still remember that lady of liberty with some trepidation.

Some excellent New York City Travel information links:

History of New York State

Intro Video from NYC Tourism (a very cool New York Video)

NYC Tourism Website

CitySearch New York City

The Gothamist - a savvy New Yorker Blogs about her city

Online Highways New York

A worker building the Empire State Building in 1930 New York City. The Chrysler Building towers above the New York Cityscape but still well below what would become the world's tallest building for many years.

For New York Travel check out our sections at Travel Highways and History, or click here for New York History.

New York History and Travel

We've just re-launched our New York Travel section here at Travel Highways and History and also have some excellent detail on the very interesting History of New York, which for you movie buffs was not nearly as tied up in the violent gang related bloodbaths depicted in Francis Ford Coppola's film "Gangs of New York". Although there were gangs around the Five Points area, the level of malice and organization in the film appear to be historically.... exaggerated to say the least. Here's a better historical background of the Five Points.

For most travelers the words "New York" conjure images of one of the world's largest and busiest cities. Wall Street massive wealth starkly contrasted with the poverty of other areas, the Statue of Liberty, Manhattan, Brooklyn Bridge, and much more.

However New York is much more than a city. The State of New York is fairly large by East Coast standards and offers a diverse landscape of ocean, mountains, and farmland. Long Island contains long stretches of sandy beaches. The Adirondack mountains in Northern New York are one of the USA's most pristine wilderness areas, set aside long ago as a natural preserve. The Catskills are not as rugged as the Adirondacks and are known more for the resorts catering to New York's early elite as for their natural beauty. Farming is bigger in New York than most realize, with many dairy farms, an active apple orchard industry, and farming Sugar Maple trees for the sap that is boiled down to make Maple Syrup. As a child who grew up in Northern New York one of my very fondest memories was heading out to the forest to watch the grizzled old men collect sap in buckets hanging from the sugar maples. The sap was the consistency of sugar water but was then boiled in large, open vats and stirred gently until it became a thick amber syrup. I still remember the taste of the warm samples, scooped out of the vat into tiny paper cups for the "tourists".