This was Doug and I’s first time in New York so we wanted to pack  in as much as we could throughout the week and I wanted to share our journey in a few pictures…

The first stop on our trip was checking into an apartment on the Upper West Side that we rented through Airbnb. We’ve never rented anything through Airbnb before, so this whole experience was new and to be honest, I was a little unsure of how it would work out. In the end, rending an apartment was the best decision we could have made during our trip because it really felt like we were living New York through a native’s perspective. To us the Upper West Side was the right distance away from the city to where you aren’t feeling smothered by people and cars, but you are still close enough to taxi or subway in within a couple minutes. It’s absolutely gorgeous with the brick town homes stacked side by side and the tree lined streets. We were only a couple block from Central Park, so walking anywhere wasn’t an issue as well. I would highly recommend checking out Airbnb if you’re looking for a more relaxed stay with more space (always check the reviews first of course).

After unpacking our bags and settling in, we headed straight over to The Loeb Boathouse where we got the most amazing lunch (in NY time it was dinner). The view was absolutely amazing overlooking the water with the Christmas decorations filling the entire restaurant area. From there we stopped at the American Museum of Natural History and took a peak at the massive dinosaur recreations and special exhibits. With the jet lag setting in (and the fact that we barely got any sleep on the red eye) we decided go to sleep early, but not without trying Shake Shack of course! The shakes were amazing, but nothing beats our California In-N-Out;) The next morning we took the subway to Soho and spent the day browsing the shops on Canal Street and exploring “Little Italy” and “Chinatown”. We had the most amazing spaghetti bolognese at Pellegrino’s Ristorante on Mulberry Street(it was to die for!)We ended the day by trying the BEST cheesecake in the world from Cafe Lalo’s a couple streets away from our apartment.

For more pictures of our trip, follow me on Instagram here and stay tuned for part 2 this week!