Explore New York City by area

3 million people across Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island. New York City groups Manhattan's core: Central Park's 843 man-made acres laid out by Olmsted and Vaux from 1858, Midtown and Times Square, the Empire State Building and One World Trade Center at 541 metres, the free 9/11 Memorial plaza, Greenwich Village, SoHo and Chinatown, Harlem, Chelsea and the High Line, the Upper East Side, and the Statue of Liberty reached by Statue City Cruises ferry from Battery Park.

Brooklyn covers DUMBO's cobblestone streets under the Manhattan Bridge, Williamsburg's Bedford Avenue strip reached by the L train, and Coney Island's boardwalk and Nathan's Famous hot dogs, plus the December lights of Dyker Heights. Outer Boroughs takes in Queens — Flushing Meadows, Astoria, and LaGuardia's home turf — the Bronx, with Yankee Stadium and the Bronx Zoo, and Staten Island, reached by the free Staten Island Ferry from Whitehall Terminal for the harbor views alone. The Hudson Valley, about an hour north by Metro-North from Grand Central, covers Sleepy Hollow's Washington Irving sites and the peak fall foliage of October.

5 hours south by NJ Transit, and the New Jersey shoreline of the harbor. Further Afield closes the loop with the long single days: Niagara Falls, about 650 km and 7 to 8 hours each way; Washington DC, about 360 km and 3 hours by Acela from Penn Station; Philadelphia, under 90 minutes by regional rail; and Boston, about 350 km and 4 hours by Amtrak. 90 a ride, and covers nearly every stop on this hub except the furthest reaches of Long Island and the Hudson Valley, where Metro-North and the LIRR take over — each destination page below sets out what's actually there rather than a generic description of "America".