All direct flights to New York JFK from the UK & Ireland

Destination Summary

From the too-much-information overload of Times Square to the peace and tranquillity of boho central Greenwich Village, the Big Apple can easily be sliced into manageable, mouth-watering chunks; indeed, of all its titles, New York can also be claimed as one of the most compact and best planned destinations in the world.

At New York's heart (or, given the Big Apple sobriquet, at its core) lies Central Park, a city in itself, home to theatre, sports, wildlife and conservation, as well as socialising and picnicking. Around it, Manhattan offers a near-comprehensive checklist of every kind of attraction, for every kind of person.

Food junkies will appreciate all the Szechwan restaurants a person could want, alongside delicatessens, round-the-clock bakeries, and street-corner stands selling hot dogs and pretzels.

Culture lovers will obviously want to catch a show on or off Broadway, then stop off at one of the city's incredibly well-stocked museums. The old design-versus-content debate rears its head at the Guggenheim, whose Frank Lloyd Wright curves wrap around a venue of variable exhibitions; over the road, the more traditional Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art) plays home to a staggering array of content. (It'd take a day - by which we mean at least ten hours - to see it all.) Then there's the recently renovated MOMA (Museum of Modern Art), as poppy (and pricey) as you like.

Of course, though it likes to think so, Manhattan doesn't really have it all. Which is why a trip off the central island can be surprising and just as eye-opening: head across the bridge to neighbouring Brooklyn, with its famous brownstone houses and reverse-angle on the city's skyscrapers; or, alternatively, why not take the Staten Island Ferry, which provides another great view of one of the world's great locations for precisely none of your American dollars?