How to avoid looking like, or being such a tourist in NYC

New York City, home of 54.3 million tourists a year. Everywhere you turn in New York City you will probably be able to spot one. Most native New Yorkers sigh or made snide remarks when they even hear the word tourists. I’m not going to lie, sometimes they get in the way and it gets a little frustrating, but I’m not here to bash or hate on them. Even when they walk zero mph and get in my way I still love seeing people coming to visit my city.  I’m here to help you enjoy New York City without being or looking like such a tourist.

Before you come to New York learn how to walk as fast as you can and how to dodge people as you walk. Nothing annoys New Yorkers more than tourists who walk slower than snails, side by side, blocking entire sidewalks. It makes me want to scream and lose my shit. Furthermore, if you are going to stop and look at a map or up at tall building, please pull over to the side of the sidewalk unless you want to get shouldered or arm barred across your chest. You’re not in the suburbs of Indiana or South Carolina; people have places to be at all times of the day and night in New York. 

Don’t be afraid to ask for directions. I myself cant even read those subway maps; however learn to approach the right people when asking. Don’t walk up to people with headphones on or people who look like they are in a hurry. I am 100% sure they are going to point in any direction and have you walking the wrong way. If someone doesn’t take at the very least four seconds to answer, they are lying to you just so you will leave them alone. Don’t be afraid to ask a cop or the guys who sell Halal food (the food trucks run by Indian guys that smell amazing) unless they are busy with a customer, they’ll most likely help you out.

Stop dressing like Steve Irwin (R.I.P.). I can’t even count how many families I see walking around that look like a family of Australian crocodile hunters. Enough of the Bermuda shorts and the sunglasses that Nascar drivers wear, and for the love of all things that are good please stop wearing I love New York shirts. They are meant for you to buy and wear back in your hometowns. I truly appreciate that you love New York I honestly do, just please don’t wear those shirts in the city, they scream tourist. We know you love New York, that’s why you’re here.

Stop visiting cliché tourist spots. Yes the Statue of Liberty and holy shit there is so many people and tall buildings in Times Square but to be honest, it’s overrated. New Yorkers tend to avoid these places at all costs. I myself dread passing through Times Square even if it’s transferring to another train underground. If you want to see what New York City is all about, lose the map and just get lost in it. Just try avoiding ending up in places like Jamaica Queens, Flatbush Brooklyn, or Fordham Road in The Bronx. You’re going to see amazing and cool things everywhere you go. As great as they are New York City has a lot more to offer than tall buildings to look at or landmarks that literally everyone knows about or sees pictures of. If you want to see beautiful architecture you should check out places Riverside Drive, Greenwich Village and many places in Brooklyn.

Stop eating at major chain restaurants. Oh my goodness, do not go to the Red Lobster at 42^nd street. There are over 24,000 restaurants in New York City and if you tell me you ate at an Olive Garden I might just punch you in the chest. You have to hit spots like Amy Ruth’s in Harlem, Tino’s Deli on Arthur Avenue, or one of my personal favorites Baohaus on 14^th street. The amount of food within New York City is outstanding, so please stay away from fast food spots and Applebee’s.

All in all tourists aren’t that annoying. Most of you just need a little direction when it comes to the city. It can be overwhelming and very confusing especially if you do not come from a metropolitan area yourself. Just change your mindset from being a tourist to being an urban explorer. The most fun I have in the city are the days I wander for ten hours straight with no set plan of what I’m doing. If you have a schedule set for your visit please make room for a day to just explore other parts of Manhattan besides midtown and the other boroughs, you won’t regret it.

Goodbye to you, 5 reasons why New Yorkers don’t give a shit you’re leaving New York City

Now -a -days all I see over my Facebook timeline are the same articles being shared about why people are leaving NYC. Prices are too high, people are too mean, lack of fresh air and so on and so forth. I could only see so many of these articles before I finally decided to say something back to these schmucks. On my behalf of my fellow real New Yorkers and people who are madly in love with this city like myself, here are some reasons why us New Yorkers could care less about you leaving.

First and foremost we honestly don’t care. I can’t emphasize this enough. I’m not writing this because I want you to stay. Please leave, just don’t write articles or memoirs or take videos. New Yorkers don’t care; we’ve heard enough of your complaining. Most people reading your articles are probably people sitting on the toilet. We don’t have time to read your sob stories. Like we don’t hear enough of the rest of the United States always talking shit about our city and how it’s “overrated”.

Yes many New Yorkers haven’t lived anywhere else but a good amount have and still choose to live in New York. I always keep an open mind about other parts of the world and other parts of the United States. I love to travel, and I love to see new places. I traveled to Alaska this past January and it was a very humbling experience.  But by the end of my travels I was more than ready to come home to New York City. To this day nothing can give me goose bumps like when I’m flying back into New York City; and it’s the same for many people. Even driving back into the good ole Bronx from New Jersey, crossing the GW gets me excited. As a young teenager I always thought of how great it would be to leave New York City and have a nice house upstate and my mother would just laugh at me and say yeah right, good luck living in the middle of nowhere. My mother knew how much I loved this city before I even did and being the obnoxious stubborn teenager I was, I applied to go away to school in a small New Jersey town to show my mom I’m capable of living somewhere else and loving it. It was the very first night I was away I knew instantly what my mother had been telling me for years. You’re going to hate it. I called her that same night apologizing telling her she was right. All in all I’m still happy with my decision because I got to realize at the perfect age that I want to stay in New York City and from that moment on my love for New York City only got stronger. In the words of John Updike, “The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.

People writing these resignation letters to New York City are not even from New York City. The very first article I read the author starts off by saying I grew up in Westchester, a suburb outside of New York City. That right there should tell you, you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. But I still gave it the benefit of the doubt and read it. The article mentions how the author’s father came home smelling like Metro North seats. Seriously, if you were born and raised in New York City your parents do not come home smelling like leather Metro North seats. I can’t even begin to explain how much this article makes my blood boil. Westchester is not New York City, never has been, never will be. If you didn’t attend New York City public schools growing up but did attend Westchester schools, you have no right to tell people you grew up in New York City. The real New Yorkers don’t go out to Broadway plays on a Saturday afternoon, granted some do, but they’re not coming in from Westchester with their suburban family. Growing up in The Bronx in the 90’s my friends and I would play baseball in the street or manhunt. We would ride our bikes up and down the block while our mothers screamed at us to not get hit by buses. We played in fire hydrants because we didn’t have fancy community pools. We watched old Spanish men play dominos, barbeque with their shirts off on their fire escapes, and blast salsa music all night long. There was no Broadway matinee with our parents or fathers coming in smelling like leather Metro North seats and stay at home mothers. We had both parents coming in from work with all the stenches of this beautiful city. My personal favorite the smell of the stale cigarettes on my father as he walked in the door with a soda in one hand and old computer parts in the other.

There is so much more culture here than you think you know. All these articles show is that privileged people come here, can’t handle it, whine about it and leave. New York City isn’t just bright lights, Broadway shows and an apartment in Greenwich Village that mommy and daddy pay for. If you want to experience the real New York City you have to hit every little cornerstone of every neighborhood of every borough which to this day I haven’t even done but I explore new spots weekly. Go to Dyckman and eat a chimichurri off of a food truck; Go to The Bronx and eat pizza made by Albanians; go to Queens and play at a handball park or watch old Chinese men play Chinese checkers; go to Brooklyn and look at all the amazing street art or teenagers free-styling on corners. There’s countless things you can do in New York City so don’t be quick to dismiss it because you got tired of going to your expensive Broadway shows.

If you don’t like the city that’s fine. It’s not for everybody, but stop down talking it and stop down talking the people. There are people who would kill to live here and you people come in and try to shit all over the name of this great place. I’ve had enough of it. If you don’t want excitement and a fast pace lifestyle don’t come here. Sure the cost is expensive to live here but that’s the price you pay for convenience and this wonderful lifestyle. That’s the big difference between real New Yorkers and those who claim to be New Yorkers. The real ones will grind and make that living so they can stay here while the rest give up to go live in the middle of nowhere. That’s fine, go do that, just don’t try and persuade me, because not even my closest friends and family members can persuade me to leave.