Always, ALWAYS late to the party! Lol. After we returned from our trip to NYC in December, I hit the ground running with Christmas content. Somehow, I totally forgot to recap everything in a blog post! Most of the places we ate and things we did are available year round in New York City, so that’s why I decided to go ahead and publish this two months later! I promise I’ll do better with my Miami travel guide. Haha!

We arrived in the city at 11am on Tuesday, and flew out Friday night. I highly recommend this because we had Tuesday afternoon and essentially all of Friday but only paid for a 3 night stay! Another helpful tip is having an itinerary. I don’t think you need one for every trip/city, but NYC is a MUST in my opinion! Most restaurants require a reservation, and they fill up quickly. There’s so much to do, and you will waste a lot of time trying to create a game plan!

Our itinerary was pretty incredible, and ended up working perfectly! (Thanks Meag lol) The three of us on the trip each chose our favorite NYC spots, and then Meagan created our schedule from there!

After we checked into our hotel, we went to Pietro Nolita in Soho! I have only taken photos at this famous spot, but we decided to try out the food too. Very delicious! Next was Grand Central Station. Mainly to pretend I was Serena van der Woodsen at the top of the stairs! 🙂 We also snagged some banana pudding at Magnolia Bakery and red velvet doughnuts at Doughnut Plant! Did I eat these both within 10 minutes? Absolutely! Lol. We ended the night with reservations at Beauty & Essex! It was my first time and such a cool vibe!

I really wanted to do things in NYC that I hadn’t before, so we started day 2 at the Cartier building for photos! They turned out great with patience from all the pedestrians! Once we were done, we visited the New York Public Library before our lunch reservation at Serra Alphina in the Flatiron District. Somehow, we scored Jimmy Fallon tickets (another thanks to Meag) and it was cool even though I kept getting him and Jimmy Kimmel mixed up. Oops! Hahaha.

Once we finished with Jimmy, we headed to my #1 request. Mean Girls on Broadway! It was SO worth it. The current cast is amazing! I’d literally go watch it again! And even though we were so tired from the busy day, we ended the night with a late reservation at Tavern on the Green. All I remember is that we ordered the birthday cake dessert at like 11pm, and it was fantastic! 🙂

Day 3 started a little later to recoup from the previous day’s activities! We had brunch at Sarabeth’s, which is a restaurant I have to go to every time I’m in the city! My order was loaded in carbs but worth every bite. Truffle fries for an appetizer and French toast! So dang delicious. We shopped and wandered around Central Park until our next reservation at Blue Box Cafe aka Breakfast at Tiffany’s!

This was my second time to go, and it’s just a magical experience! Unfortunately, Tiffany’s is relocating while their flagship store is renovated, so the cafe is now closed until 2021. How sad! We ended the day at the Rosè Mansion and Top of the Rock. It was so neat to see the city at night, but I recommend going during the day if you want a good photo!

Our last day in NYC was more low key than the others since we had flights to catch that night. We were all dying to go to Rolf’s and knew we needed to go early for a better chance at getting a table! A few takeaways here. The Christmas decorations are incredible, but the food is horrible! Just being honest. If you land a table, they require you to order a meal! I do think we got better photos having a table versus just standing at the bar for a drink, but I don’t know if my $60 tab was worth it. Lol! Bottom line, just order a drink!

Before grabbing our luggage from the hotel, we wandered around Soho eating truffles at Milk Bar and visiting the Stoney Clover pop-up. This was really the only time we didn’t have solid plans, but I was very grateful for our stacked itinerary throughout the trip! We were able to do so much in a short amount of time. New York City is just so magical at Christmas, although I love visiting anytime of the year! 🙂

PS: My other New York City travel guides are HERE and HERE (NYFW)!

XOXO

Kels