21 Comments
If you're like Weezy, you can take a space shuttle home!
The holidays in New York are the most wonderful time of the year… so long as you live in New York. For the rest of us, it entails a desperate odyssey to get out of the city in order to see our friends and families. There are lots of ways to get out in one piece. Bwog’s resourceful Peter Sterne tells you how.
Trains
If you’ve shrewdly decided to live close to Columbia, then you should be able to take the train home.
Those traveling to Westchester or southern Connecticut on Metro-North should make sure to check the holiday schedule here and you should wish you had the foresight to buy a ticket online. If you (like this Bwogger) have yet to buy a ticket, make sure to get to Grand Central at least an hour or two early since the lines in front of the ticket machines will be ridiculous. Alternatively, you could take the M60 to 125th station, which should have shorter lines at the ticket machines. But remember that if you catch the train at 125th, you’ll be lucky if there’s standing room, let alone a seat, on the train.
When traveling on NJ Transit or the LIRR, the same advice applies. Here are the NJ Transit and LIRR schedules that cover Thanksgiving. Just make sure you go to Penn Station instead of Grand Central or 125th!
If you’re an Amtrak customer, be sure to take advantage of the Quik-Trak system. All you have to do is make a reservation on Amtrak’s site, print out the order confirmation, and scan the order confirmation at a kiosk in Penn Station that will print out your ticket for you. If you’re an Amtrak customer, though, you’re probably paying way too much for your ticket (especially if you’re taking the Acela!) if you’re willing to endure a longer travel time, you can get to the same place for a fraction of the price.
Planes
If you decide to fly, make sure to check if your airline offers online check-in. This service allows you to check in to your flight before you even arrive at the airport, saving you fro waiting in the long line at the check-in counter. Most major airlines, including United, Continental, Jetblue, US Airways, Southwest, Delta, American Airlines, Air Canada, and British Airways offer this useful service.
Of course, one of the biggest hassles of flying out of New York City (other than those new full-body scanners) is just getting to the airport in the first place.
If you’re going to LaGuardia with light luggage and you have an hour or two to spare, you can’t beat taking the M60 for only $2.25.
You could take a cab to JFK (check out Carsplit, always!) but it’s much cheaper to get to the E train (at either Port Authority or 50th street) and take it to the JFK Airtrain.
If you’ve inexplicably decided that your best bet is to fly out of Jersey, you should avoid the roads at all costs. There’s a reason the GWB was named one of the most congested freeways in the country. Instead, get down to the Port Authority PENN STATION and take NJ Transit to the Newark Airtrain.
And Automobiles
The king of buses is BoltBus, which offers dirt cheap tickets and amenities including WiFi and power outlets. Unsurprisingly, every single Boltbus ticket for Wednesday is sold out. At post time, there were a few tickets available on Craigslist, but they weren’t too cheap.
For us frugal students, the next best option is probably a Chinatown bus line. But be warned: these buses are almost overbooked, so get there early and practice your Mandarin ahead of time. Fung Wah, the oldest and most famous Chinatown bus, will get you from Manhattan to Boston with no stops and no amenities for $15. If you can afford an extra $5 and want a more BoltBus-like experience, you can check out the new Worldwide Bus, which will get you from Manhattan to Newton, MA (Boston College) or Cambridge, MA (Harvard/MIT) for only $20.
If you need to go to another East Coast city, you can check out the prices of various routes that Chinatown buses cover here. If you want to stay away from Chinatown, you can check out the mainstream line Greyhound, which has guaranteed seating and rates that are sometimes competitive with the Chinatown lines.
What if you’re not lucky enough to live on the East Coast? Well, Greyhound can take you anywhere in North America if you’re willing to pay over $100 for a ticket.
However you plan to get out of the city, make sure that you don’t leave it to the last minute. Unlike TAs, trains and planes won’t give you extensions. And if you any advice on traveling during the holidays, feel free to leave it in the comments! Happy no-school, friends!
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21 Comments
@JJ5 The LIRR from Penn Station is so much better than the E. And it’s reliable and frequent since almost all trains stop at Jamaica. Also, on weekends it’s only $3.50 for the CityTicket!
@0_0 What is that plane doing to the other plane, daddy?
@Hooah Bwog, if you were in the comments section recently enough to favorite this comment, then you really should have seen the comment about your Port Authority error, and dealt with it. This is serious. It would really suck if some freshman went to the Port Authority instead of to Penn Station tomorrow to try to get to Newark Airport and ended up missing their plane home for Thanksgiving.
@Eliza Absolutely true, just fixed. That lag was our fault.
@Anonymous You crossed out the wrong Port Authority! It’s okay to catch the E at Port Authority. We were talking about getting to Newark Airport (EWR) via the Newark Airtrain, which you need to take an NJ Transit train that leaves from Penn Station.
Argh. For Newark: http://www.panynj.gov/airports/ewr-airtrain.html
For JFK: http://www.panynj.gov/airports/jfk-airtrain.html
@lol Now people are going to be trying to get the E from Penn and the Airtrain from Port Authority. Bwog will eventually correct it. In the meantime, I doubt anyone’s going to read this article, skip the comments, and then hop on a train downtown. Most likely, the subway will be screwed up tomorrow anyway that there will be bigger things to worry about than people getting off at the wrong stop.
@Eliza Bah thank you all fixed now, at long last.
@Anonymous Also, Hooah is a sanctimonious dick.
@Hooah Could not agree more.
@I've had some of my best near-death experiences on Chinatown buses
@Anonymous Fung Wah sometimes makes a stop on the way to Boston.
@Anonymous Megabus is the best!!
@Anonymous you forgot about megabus and peterpan! peter pan never sells out, they just over book so you have to get there early. megabus, i’m not so sure about..but both have competitive prices for boston.
@well Megabus is actually more expensive than Greyhound! Plus the site’s down: http://www.megabus.com
@Anonymous It’s cheaper to take the 1 to Marble Hill 225th St. and get on the train there if you’re on the Hudson line. Standing room only, but basically no line at the ticket booth and a cheaper ticket.
@you're poor im guessing?
@... You get the AirTrain to Newark is from Penn Station, not Port Authority (there are no trains, except for the subway, at Port Authority). If you take the 1 to Penn and get the AirTrain from there to Newark it’s actually faster than taking the E to Jamaica or the A to Howard Beach and then getting the AirTrain to JFK.
@Anonymous I’ll take the charitable explanation and assume that Bwog was talking about a bus to Newark.
You can also take the LIRR from Penn Station to Jamaica, and from there, the JFK AirTrain. The $5 or so LIRR ride is so worth it, compared to the subways.
@well newark blows. you only go there if youre poor. il see the rest of you at LGA.
@poor bwog They’re confusing their West Side transit stations again! You’re right that NJ Transit (including the Airtrain) leave from Penn and not Port Authority. It’s probably just a typo; if bwog was really encouraging us to take the bus, they wouldn’t have said to avoid the roads at all costs!
@tip for trains. usually the ticket line is insane later in the afternoon on wednesday. sometimes, i just hope on and pay the surcharge, instead of missing a train or too.