New York Summer family vacation ideas

About a week

Summer in NYC can be quite hot & walking around in the concrete jungle isn't so pleasant when it's 85 degrees and humid. I like NYC in the fall, winter, and spring.

Aside from your timing, NYC can easily fill a week, even for a mixed age group. The Circle Line boat tours to Statue of Liberty (or all the way around Manhattan), a walk across the Brooklyn bridge, Empire St bldg or Top of Rockefeller Center, Broadway shows (many are kid friendly; or you can split up and one parent can do Lion King w/kid while other two go somewhere more grown up), the Met museum of Art, MOMA (even a little kid probably recognizes Van Gogh's Starry Night), shopping (American Girl store for the little girl, for ex), a ride all the way up to Inwood Hill park to visit the Cloisters (the Met museum of medieval art housed inside an actual reconstructed medieval stone cloister: LINK

It's a city ridiculously endowed with cultural attractions and interesting things to do and eat.

To me, the trick to enjoying a city visit is NOT to try to cram in everything. Don't be afraid to slow the pace down, take your time, relax at cafes, etc. Hotel rooms in NYC are tiny & can be stupidly expensive...so choose carefully to ensure that you guys have sufficient room not to be cramped for a week. (Consider whether you like full service hotels vs the AirBnB experience.)

My better half and I took my 15/16 yo niece to NYC for spring break last year. We all had a great time, saw Wicked, ate lots of pizza, walked from one end of town to the other, encountered hipsters in Williamsburg, b-boys break dancing in the street, saw a parade of exotic cars driving thru midtown on the way to a car show at the Javits center, enjoyed her first bowl of ramen at a basement joint where we were the only non-Japanese, tried Dominique Ansel's famed cronut, hit the Union Square greenmarket & drank fresh cider, had bagels & lox before going to the top of the Empire St building, hit up Shake Shack after a water taxi ride.....

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Has anyone here ever vacationed in NYC?

is this a good idea?

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NYC is a great place but I think I would vacation there in Fall, Winter, or Spring. As another poster said, walking around the concrete jungle during the summer could make for a tiring time.

I find that October or early-November tend to be great times to go. The weather averages on high anywhere from 55 to 75 which is wonderful for being out and about with the family.

A week will be plenty time to take in the city and all that it offers. I am taking the wife and kids back early November so can't wait

I would skip NYC and tent camp upstate.

Most locals leave the city on weekends in the summer. It is unbearably hot and you are just too close to good beaches to not take advantage.

With that said, you can typically get in better restaurants bc of this.