Name: Where to Stay in New York City - 5 Best Neighborhoods
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Where to Stay in New York City - 5 Best Neighborhoods

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Skip to contentWondering where to stay in New York City? Here are my picks for the best neighborhoods to stay!New York City is really a huge metropolis, and that makes it hard to decide where you want to stay the first time.&nbsp;After all, there are so many different options, each with a different price tag.&nbsp;It can also take quite some time to travel from one side of the city to the other.&nbsp;Fortunately, this guide should help you! I recently went on a trip to New York City and have done quite a bit of research to figure out where to book my accommodation!A brief explanation of the city. New York City, with its surface area of almost 800 km², is very large and also consists of five different parts.&nbsp;These are:The island of&nbsp;Manhattan&nbsp;is where the city originated, and that is still seen as the center of the city.&nbsp;Here you will find most&nbsp;sights and activities&nbsp;such as Times Square, Central Park and Broadway.&nbsp;But it is also the most expensive part to stay.&nbsp;Incidentally, Manhattan also has neighborhoods such as Harlem, where hotels are cheaper.Brooklyn&nbsp;is located south-east of Manhattan on Long Island.&nbsp;It’s famous for its cultural and art scene.&nbsp;You will find trendy cafes, restaurants with tastes from all over the world, colorful street art, and beautiful brownstone houses interspersed with warehouses that have been converted into shops.Queens&nbsp;is located north-east of Brooklyn.&nbsp;It is the largest area of the city and is known for its diversity.&nbsp;It is even the most ethnically diverse district in all of America!&nbsp;Queens was once founded by the Dutch (after they had “bought” the land from the Lenape tribe of course). Back then it mainly consisted of villages and farms.&nbsp;The New York Mets stadium is here as well as the two major NYC airports — LaGuardia and JFK.The Bronx&nbsp;is located north of Manhattan.&nbsp;It used to be primarily known to me as the place where Jennifer Lopez comes from (please tell me you understand this reference! :-)).&nbsp;Now you will find the Yankees stadium, a large zoo, and the New York Botanical Garden.Staten Island&nbsp;is the neighborhood furthest away from Manhattan.&nbsp;You won’t find many sights here and it’s primarily known as the neighborhood where locals live who work in other parts of the city.&nbsp;You can take the free ferry to Staten Island from Manhattan, and get a cool view of the Statue of Liberty!You’ll like Midtown if you like staying in the midst of all the shiny skyscrapers, waking up to great views of New York, and sitting around the corner from all the entertainment the city has to offer!Midtown is not only a neighborhood, but also a region in Manhattan. Roughly you can divide Manhattan into 3 parts: “Uptown”, “Midtown” and “Downtown.”Uptown is a mix of the super chic (Upper East Side) and ethnically and culturally diverse (Harlem).&nbsp;Midtown is where you will find most sights and highlights. Downtown offers a mix of the financial center and many historic neighborhoods full of wonderful restaurants.&nbsp;Midtown and Downtown are the nicest parts of Manhattan.If you really want to stay in the middle of the sights, Midtown is your best choice.&nbsp;This neighborhood reads like a travel guide.&nbsp;In Midtown you will find famous buildings such as the Empire State Building, Grand Central Station, the Chrysler Building, Broadway, and Times Square.I find Midtown a little less atmospheric than Downtown, but you really can’t beat the location.&nbsp;You can easily walk from the Rockefeller Center, where you can catch a sunset over NYC, to one of the many restaurants in Hell’s Kitchen, and then settle down at a Broadway show.&nbsp;The ultimate New York experience, right?Take this walking tour to see many of the sights in Midtown and morePrefer a different hotel in Midtown?&nbsp;See all options here.You’ll like Bushwick if you like a neighborhood full of old factory halls that have been transformed into hip hotspots.&nbsp;Eat Ethiopian one evening, fusion sushi the next, and eat a hearty American breakfast in the morning with dinner on the corner&nbsp;.My favorite neighborhood in New York?&nbsp;That would be Bushwick, the area where we spent a week in an Airbnb.&nbsp;Bushwick is located in Brooklyn and is without a doubt the hippest neighborhood of the moment.&nbsp;All hipsters, artists, and millennials who can’t afford the rest of the city reside here. It reminds me a bit of my favorite London neighborhood, the fun Shoreditch.The area is full of great bars, good cafes, and restaurants from all over the world.&nbsp;Where at one moment you can settle down at a trendy cocktail bar with good prices, you can also eat tacos for a few dollars around the corner at a restaurant that has been around for decades.The many abandoned factories now have hip restaurants and pop up stores, and the walls are decorated with all kinds of colorful art.&nbsp;I think the great thing about Bushwick is that you still walk around among locals.&nbsp;While Williamsburg can no longer be paid for “normal people,” Bushwick is still real.&nbsp;But you know how quickly things change in the city, so go there before it’s too late ;-).Get to know Bushwick better with this cool street art walking tour.Bushwick is developing rapidly, so there is not so much choice in terms of hotels. In this case I recommend you book an Airbnb (get a € 25 discount here!).&nbsp;Otherwise you can stay very nice in the neighboring Williamsburg!Prefer a hotel in Bushwick?&nbsp;See all options here.You’ll like Downtown if you like staying in the middle of history. It’s a neighborhood where you can eat great food!The nicest part of Manhattan is Downtown, specifically the “Lower East Side” district.&nbsp;The neighborhood was originally an immigrant neighborhood, where a large wave of people came to live in the 19th and 20th centuries.They lived in “tenements”, buildings with apartments where many families often lived on their own.&nbsp;Circumstances were bad.&nbsp;If you want to learn more about this, I recommend you go to the Tenements Museum.With every group of new immigrants, the neighborhood gradually broke into its own “mini-neighborhoods,” such as Little Italy, SoHo and Chinatown (the largest Chinese neighborhood in the Western Hemisphere).For some ten or fifteen years, gentrification has had a big grip on the neighborhood: residential towers with expensive apartments are booming, in a neighborhood traditionally occupied by people with low incomes.Downtown is also bursting with sights: from the 9/11 Memorial and Museum to Wall Street and Battery Park (where you can catch the Staten Island ferry).Prefer a different hotel in the Lower East Side?&nbsp;See all options here.You will love Williamsburg if you like being surrounded by the hippest restaurants, chic cocktail bars, and a mix of expensive shops and original boutiques.&nbsp;You also have great views of Manhattan here, and you will find some of the coolest hotels in New York here.Williamsburg is the original hipster neighborhood of New York.&nbsp;And it is without a doubt a really nice neighborhood to visit because of the boulevard on the water and the many nice coffee shops and boutiques.&nbsp;Because it is across the river from Manhattan, you can easily combine the two.Since Williamsburg is on the water, it became known for its shipyards. The products that arrived here were immediately processed in the factories and shipped on again.In 1855 the town of Williamsburg was annexed by Brooklyn, and a large financial growth began.&nbsp;Initially the population was mainly German, but after the Brooklyn Bridge was finished in 1903, many Jews came to live here. This increased after WWII. If you walk through the neighborhood you will still encounter many Orthodox Jews.When artists began to settle in Williamsburg in the 1990s due to low rents, more restaurants and stores started to open in the neighborhood, and rents went up.&nbsp;Williamsburg is now very expensive to live in.&nbsp;It is now one of the trendiest neighborhoods in New York, with a number of really cool hotels, great coffee shops, and a great food market.&nbsp;Moreover, you are in Manhattan in no time.Prefer a different hotel in Williamsburg?&nbsp;See all options here.You like Brooklyn Heights if you want a quiet, green neighborhood full of chic homes in all sorts of architectural styles.&nbsp;Of course you will also find many nice restaurants, and you have a beautiful view of Manhattan.I did not expect that I would like Brooklyn Heights so much, because I actually ended up there more or less by accident.&nbsp;But I thought it was one of the nicest places in New York.&nbsp;And if I had a bag of money, maybe I would live here in a beautiful brownstone on the wooded avenues.&nbsp;(It is quite a chic neighborhood, so that bag of money is needed).Anyway, how I ended up in the neighborhood: After visiting the Brooklyn Bridge and taking photos on Washington Street, we scoured the waterfront boulevard and we ended up in Brooklyn Heights.&nbsp;And wow, it was beautiful and peaceful here!&nbsp;We sat in the sunshine with a view of the Manhattan skyline, one of my happiest moments in New York.The Brooklyn Heights district began to develop after a steamboat connection was established between the area and Manhattan in 1814.&nbsp;The intention was that the houses in Brooklyn Heights would be sold to bankers and rich salesmen, so the connection had to be good.In 1965, Brooklyn Heights became the first neighborhood to be protected by the Landmarks Preservation Law.&nbsp;Architecture enthusiasts will be able to indulge in the neighborhood as you come across such a diversity of building styles.&nbsp;I thought it was wonderful to just wander around without a plan, and to look at all the beautiful buildings that I came across.&nbsp;Middagh Street in particular is nice with its wooden houses.Prefer a different hotel in Brooklyn Heights?&nbsp;See all options here.As you can see, my suggestions are really only for Brooklyn and Manhattan. Those are the two parts that I have been able to visit fairly extensively during my city trip.&nbsp;Next time I would like to discover a little more about Harlem, which seems to be developing rapidly.&nbsp;But I am also very curious about your suggestions!Privacy &amp; Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here:Cookie PolicyMy name is Milou, a fulltime travel blogger and digital nomad. On this blog I help women create location independent lives &amp; careers.I'm also the founder of the Female Digital Nomads Facebook community.Find out more...Follow

Skip to contentWondering where to stay in New York City? Here are my picks for the best neighborhoods to stay!New York City is really a huge metropolis, and that makes it hard to decide where you want to stay the first time.&nbsp;After all, there are so many different options, each with a different price tag.&nbsp;It can also take quite some time to travel from one side of the city to the other.&nbsp;Fortunately, this guide should help you! I recently went on a trip to New York City and have done quite a bit of research to figure out where to book my accommodation!A brief explanation of the...

Where to Stay in New York City - 5 Best Neighborhoods

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