family kids
Animal Farm Petting Zoo
📍 Manorville
A zoo on Wading River Rd in Manorville. In its own words: “Discover Animal Farm Petting Zoo in Manorville, NY – Long Island's original family petting zoo since 1981.” (official site)
Official site ↗
✈️ TRAVEL MODE · METRO AREA
New York City Metro Area
Top things to do for visitors, each linked to its official source.
METRO AREA
New York City Metro Area
arts culture
Anthology Film Archives
📍 East Village
An East Village archive and cinema for avant-garde, experimental and rare films in an old courthouse.
Official site ↗other
Avant Garden
📍 Manhattan
A restaurant on Avenue A in Manhattan. Open seven days. What sets it apart: michelin (per its official site).
Official site ↗arts culture
BAM
📍 Fort Greene
The Brooklyn Academy of Music, a Fort Greene arts center for theater, dance, opera and independent film across several historic venues.
Official site ↗other
Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum
📍 Pelham Bay Park
A Greek Revival mansion and gardens in Pelham Bay Park with period rooms and walking trails along the water.
Official site ↗arts culture
Birdland
📍 Theater District
A Theater District jazz club named for Charlie Parker, with big bands, singers and dinner seating.
Official site ↗other
Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden
📍 Astoria
New York's oldest beer garden, opened by Czech and Slovak immigrants in 1910, with long picnic tables under the trees and Czech beer.
Official site ↗arts culture
Bronx Museum of the Arts
📍 Concourse
A free contemporary art museum on the Grand Concourse focused on artists of African, Asian and Latin American descent.
Official site ↗other
Bronx Night Market
📍 Fordham
A seasonal Saturday open-air market on Fordham Plaza with local vendors, music and community events.
Official site ↗arts culture
Brooklyn Children's Museum
📍 Crown Heights
The world's first museum built for children, founded in 1899, with hands-on exhibits for young kids in a bright yellow building.
Official site ↗arts culture
Brooklyn Museum
📍 Prospect Heights
One of the country's largest art museums, with Egyptian art, Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party and themed First Saturday evenings.
Official site ↗other
Bryant Park Grill
📍 New York
A restaurant on West 40th Street in Manhattan. Open seven days. What sets it apart: rooftop (per its official site).
Official site ↗other
Center for Brooklyn History
📍 Brooklyn Heights
A Brooklyn Heights library and museum in an 1881 landmark, with exhibitions on the borough's past.
Official site ↗arts culture
Children's Museum of Manhattan
📍 New York
A museum on West 83rd Street in New York. What sets it apart: interactive exhibits and programs built for kids ages 0–6 (per its official site).
Official site ↗arts culture
City Island Nautical Museum
📍 City Island
A small museum in an old City Island schoolhouse covering the island's sailing, shipbuilding and fishing history.
Official site ↗arts culture
City Reliquary
📍 Williamsburg
A tiny, volunteer-run Williamsburg museum of New York curiosities: subway tokens, Statue of Liberty souvenirs and other civic memorabilia.
Official site ↗arts culture
Coney Island Museum
📍 Coney Island
Run by the nonprofit Coney Island USA, with exhibits on the neighborhood's amusement history, plus the Coney Island Circus Sideshow and the Mermaid Parade.
Official site ↗arts culture
Film Forum
📍 Greenwich Village
A nonprofit cinema on Houston Street screening independent premieres and classic film series.
Official site ↗arts culture
Flushing Town Hall
📍 Flushing
An 1862 Romanesque Revival town hall that now hosts jazz jams, global music and dance performances in Flushing.
Official site ↗other
Fort Totten Park
📍 Bayside
A Civil War-era fort on Little Neck Bay, with stone batteries, tunnels and waterfront views. Park rangers lead tours.
Official site ↗other
Grimm Artisanal Ales
📍 Williamsburg
A Brooklyn brewery's taproom and rooftop in East Williamsburg, pouring creative sours and IPAs brewed on-site.
Official site ↗other
Hill Country Barbecue Market
📍 New York
A barbecue restaurant on West 26th Street in Manhattan. Open seven days. What sets it apart: live music (per its official site).
Official site ↗other
Historic Richmond Town
📍 Richmondtown
A living history village of restored buildings from the 1600s to the 1900s, with costumed demonstrations and seasonal events.
Official site ↗arts culture
Holocaust Museum and Tolerance Center
📍 Glen Cove
A museum on Crescent Beach Road in Glen Cove. In its own words: “Founded over 25 years ago, the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County is the preeminent Holocaust resource on Long Island.” (official sit
Official site ↗arts culture
IFC Center
📍 Greenwich Village
A Sixth Avenue art-house cinema with indie premieres, documentaries and cult midnight screenings.
Official site ↗other
Jack's Fire Department
📍 Queens
A pub on Skillman Avenue in Queens, family-run since 1986. Open seven days, until 4 AM on its latest nights. What sets it apart: in business since 1986 (per its official site).
Official site ↗arts culture
Jackie Robinson Museum
📍 New York
A museum on Varick Street in New York. In its own words: “Learn about the life and legacy of Jackie Robinson through artifacts, historical imagery and multilayered storytelling.” (official site)
Official site ↗arts culture
Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art
📍 Lighthouse Hill
A hilltop museum built like a Himalayan monastery, with a meditation garden and Tibetan and Buddhist art.
Official site ↗other
King Manor Museum
📍 Jamaica
The Jamaica home of Rufus King, a signer of the Constitution and an early opponent of slavery, set in a public park.
Official site ↗other
L&B Spumoni Gardens
📍 Gravesend
A Gravesend institution since 1939, known for square Sicilian slices with sauce on top and tri-color spumoni eaten at outdoor picnic tables.
Official site ↗arts culture
Le Poisson Rouge
📍 Greenwich Village
A Bleecker Street venue on the site of the old Village Gate, mixing concerts, classical music and comedy.
Official site ↗other
Lewis Latimer House Museum
📍 Flushing
The Flushing home of Black inventor Lewis Latimer, who improved the light bulb filament, now a museum about invention.
Official site ↗arts culture
Louis Armstrong House Museum
📍 Corona
The Corona home where Louis and Lucille Armstrong lived for nearly 30 years, preserved as they left it, with a center across the street.
Official site ↗other
Merchant's House Museum
📍 NoHo
An 1832 rowhouse with its original furnishings intact, home to one family for nearly 100 years and said to be haunted.
Official site ↗arts culture
Metrograph
📍 Lower East Side
A Lower East Side cinema showing 35mm repertory and new releases, with a bookshop and restaurant.
Official site ↗arts culture
Museum of Arts and Design
📍 Columbus Circle
A Columbus Circle museum of craft, art and design, with artist studios and a restaurant overlooking Central Park.
Official site ↗arts culture
Museum of the City of New York
📍 East Harlem
A Fifth Avenue museum about New York's past and present, with a film on the city's history and rotating exhibits.
Official site ↗arts culture
National Lighthouse Museum
📍 St. George
A museum near the ferry terminal on the former U.S. Lighthouse Service depot, telling the story of America's lighthouses.
Official site ↗other
Naumburg Orchestral Concerts
📍 Central Park
A free summer classical series on the Naumburg Bandshell, the stone shell at the end of the Central Park Mall. It is one of the oldest outdoor concert series in the park.
Official site ↗arts culture
Neue Galerie
📍 Upper East Side
A Fifth Avenue mansion museum for German and Austrian art, home to Klimt's Woman in Gold and a Viennese café.
Official site ↗arts culture
New York Hall of Science
📍 Flushing Meadows
A hands-on science museum built for the 1964 World's Fair, with interactive exhibits for kids and a science playground.
Official site ↗arts culture
New York Transit Museum
📍 Brooklyn
A museum on Schermerhorn Street in Brooklyn. In its own words: “Founded in 1976, the New York Transit Museum is dedicated to preserving and sharing the stories of New York’s mass transportation.” (official site)
Official site ↗arts culture
New York Transit Museum Gallery
📍 Midtown
A small gallery and shop inside Grand Central Terminal with exhibits on the city's subways and buses.
Official site ↗arts culture
New-York Historical Society
📍 Upper West Side
New York's oldest museum, on Central Park West, covering American and city history, with Tiffany lamps and Hudson River School art.
Official site ↗arts culture
Noguchi Museum
📍 Long Island City
Isamu Noguchi's own museum and sculpture garden in Long Island City, a calm space of stone, wood and light.
Official site ↗arts culture
Poster House
📍 Chelsea
The first museum in the United States dedicated to posters, with shows on design, advertising and propaganda.
Official site ↗other
Queens County Farm Museum
📍 Floral Park
New York City's largest working farm, a 47-acre site with animals, orchards and seasonal events like a corn maze.
Official site ↗other
Rosa's at Park
📍 Bronx
A restaurant on Park Avenue in the Bronx. Open seven days. What sets it apart: rooftop (per its official site).
Official site ↗arts culture
SculptureCenter
📍 Long Island City
A contemporary art space in a former trolley repair shop in Long Island City, with experimental shows in its brick basement galleries.
Official site ↗arts culture
Smalls Jazz Club
📍 West Village
A small West Village basement jazz club with sets late into the night and a friendly, musician-heavy crowd.
Official site ↗arts culture
St. Ann's Warehouse
📍 DUMBO
A DUMBO theater inside a converted tobacco warehouse, known for bold international productions steps from the Brooklyn Bridge.
Official site ↗arts culture
Staten Island Children's Museum
📍 Livingston
A hands-on children's museum on the Snug Harbor campus with play spaces about bugs, water and the city.
Official site ↗arts culture
Stepping Stones Museum for Children
📍 Norwalk
A museum on West Avenue in Norwalk. In its own words: “The joy of discovery is at the heart of Stepping Stones Museum for Children in Norwalk, CT.” (official site)
Official site ↗arts culture
Storm King Art Center
📍 New Windsor
A art center in New Windsor. What sets it apart: large-scale sculpture and site-specific commissions shown outdoors across its landscape, under open sky (per its official site).
Official site ↗other
SummerStage in Central Park
📍 Central Park
City Parks Foundation's outdoor stage at Rumsey Playfield, where the summer season brings concerts in the park, from free shows to ticketed headliners, under the Central Park trees.
Official site ↗arts culture
Tenement Museum
📍 Lower East Side
Guided tours of restored Lower East Side tenement apartments that tell the real stories of immigrant families who lived there.
Official site ↗arts culture
The Drawing Center
📍 SoHo
A SoHo museum devoted to drawing, from old masters to contemporary artists.
Official site ↗other
Van Cortlandt House Museum
📍 Van Cortlandt Park
The oldest house in the Bronx, a 1748 Georgian manor in Van Cortlandt Park that George Washington used during the Revolution.
Official site ↗arts culture
Village Vanguard
📍 West Village
A basement jazz club open since 1935, where legends like Coltrane and Bill Evans recorded live albums. Two sets nightly.
Official site ↗arts culture
Waterfront Museum
📍 Red Hook
A 1914 wooden railroad barge docked in Red Hook, now a floating museum and performance space with sweeping harbor views.
Official site ↗other
Wyckoff House Museum
📍 East Flatbush
New York City's oldest building, a Dutch farmhouse from around 1652, with tours, a garden and farm programs in East Flatbush.
Official site ↗tours walksFREE
African Burial Ground National Monument
📍 Civic Center
A memorial and visitor center honoring the free and enslaved Africans buried here in the 1600s–1700s.
Official site ↗arts culture
All In Adventures West Nyack
📍 West Nyack (Palisades Center)
Five 60-minute themed escape rooms, including Treasure Island, Zombie Apocalypse and Sherlock's Library.
Official site ↗outdoorsFREE
Alley Pond Park trails
📍 Douglaston
Marked woodland and wetland trails in northeast Queens.
Official site ↗markets shoppingFREE
American Girl Place New York
📍 Rockefeller Center
Doll store with a doll hair salon and a café.
Official site ↗family kidsFREE
American Museum of Natural History: pay what you wish (NY State residents)
📍 Upper West Side
General admission is pay-what-you-wish for NY State residents with ID. Special exhibits cost extra.
Official site ↗markets shoppingFREE
Apple Fifth Avenue (the glass cube)
📍 Midtown
The glass cube on 59th St, open 24 hours. Free Today at Apple sessions.
Official site ↗arts culture
ARTE MUSEUM New York
📍 Chelsea
Immersive digital art halls of waves, flowers and light projected floor to ceiling.
Official site ↗arts culture
ARTECHOUSE NYC
📍 Chelsea Market
Room-sized digital art in an old boiler room under Chelsea Market. Now showing: Twilight Zone, an ocean show.
Official site ↗food giveawaysFREE
Arthur Avenue Retail Market
📍 Arthur Avenue
LaGuardia's 1940 covered Italian market in Bronx Little Italy: cheese, cured meats, cigars, a beer hall and Gene Bean's ices. Free to wander.
Official site ↗outdoorsFREE
Bear Mountain State Park
📍 Bear Mountain
Hessian Lake loop, the Perkins Drive overlook and Hudson Highlands trails. Walking in is free; the park charges a car fee on some dates. Trailside Museums & Zoo keep shorter daytime hours.
Official site ↗tours walksFREE
Big Apple Greeter
📍 All five boroughs
A free volunteer "greeter" shows you a neighborhood like a local. Request online in advance.
Official site ↗markets shoppingFREE
Books of Wonder
📍 Flatiron
NYC's classic kids' bookstore, with original illustration art and Oz rarities.
Official site ↗arts culture
BrainXcape
📍 Manhattan
Manhattan escape rooms for groups.
Official site ↗outdoorsFREE
Branch Brook Park
📍 Newark
America's first county park, famous for its cherry blossoms in April.
Official site ↗outdoorsFREE
Briarcliff-Peekskill Trailway
📍 Briarcliff Manor to Peekskill
A 12-mile unpaved county hiking trail.
Official site ↗outdoorsFREE
Bronx Park & Bronx River paths
📍 Bronx River
Riverside paths along the Bronx River between the Zoo and the Botanical Garden.
Official site ↗family kids
Bronx Zoo
📍 Bronx Park
A well-known museum or garden worth a few hours.
Official site ↗family kids
Bronx Zoo Holiday Lights: Opening Weekend
📍 Bronx Park
An after-dark walk through illuminated wildlife displays and interactive seasonal features. Opening weekend is Sat Nov 21 and Sun Nov 22; lights switch on at 4:30 PM.
Official site ↗family kidsFREE
Bronx Zoo: free Wednesdays
📍 Bronx Park
Free general admission every Wednesday with an advance date-specific ticket.
Official site ↗arts cultureFREE
Brookfield Place Winter Garden
📍 Battery Park City
A glass atrium with 16 palm trees overlooking the Hudson marina. Free to enter.
Official site ↗arts culture
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
📍 Prospect Heights
A well-known museum or garden worth a few hours.
Official site ↗fitness wellness
Brooklyn Boulders Queensbridge
📍 Long Island City
A climbing gym in LIC with bouldering and roped walls. Beginners are welcome; sign the waiver before your first visit.
Official site ↗outdoorsFREE
Brooklyn Bridge Park
📍 DUMBO & Brooklyn Heights
85 waterfront acres of piers and lawns with the best Manhattan skyline views.
Official site ↗outdoorsFREE
Brooklyn Bridge Park Boathouse: free kayaking
📍 Dumbo, Brooklyn Bridge Park
Free kayaking in the calm water between Piers 1 and 2, under the Brooklyn Bridge. Book a slot two weeks ahead or try walking up.
Official site ↗arts culture
Brooklyn Escape Room
📍 Industry City
Themed puzzle rooms in Industry City.
Official site ↗fitness wellness
Brooklyn Go Karts & Mini Golf
📍 Gravesend
Outdoor go-kart track and mini golf.
Official site ↗arts culture
Bruce Museum
📍 Greenwich
Art and natural history museum with free parking, for all ages.
Official site ↗arts cultureFREE
Bruce Museum: Free Tuesdays
📍 Greenwich
Art and natural history museum in Greenwich, free for everyone on Tuesdays. Free parking on site. 1 Museum Dr.
Official site ↗outdoorsFREE
Bryant Park
📍 Midtown
Midtown's lawn and reading room behind the library, with free programs most of the year.
Official site ↗fitness wellness
Bryant Park Winter Village Ice Skating
📍 Midtown
Skate in Midtown at Bryant Park's seasonal rink, where admission is free and you can bring your own skates or rent a pair. The 2026–27 season runs Oct 28 to Feb 28.
Official site ↗markets shoppingFREE
CAMP Flatiron
📍 Flatiron
A "family experience" toy store with a secret door and themed play areas.
Official site ↗outdoorsFREE
Carl Schurz Park Dog Runs
📍 Yorkville
Two fenced runs along the East River, from E 84th to 89th Streets near East End Avenue.
Official site ↗tours walksFREE
Castle Clinton National Monument
📍 The Battery
An 1811 fort in The Battery. Walk in free; it is also where Statue of Liberty ferry tickets are sold.
Official site ↗outdoorsFREE
Caumsett State Historic Park Preserve
📍 Lloyd Harbor
Hiking and walking trails across a former estate on the North Shore. No pets allowed.
Official site ↗outdoorsFREE
Central Park
📍 Midtown to Harlem
843 acres of lawns, lakes, bridges and paths. Bethesda Terrace, Bow Bridge and the Ramble are free anytime.
Official site ↗