10 Websites for New York Trip Planning

Planning a trip to New York City is both exciting and scary. Exciting because, well, you get to see the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty and Times Square and all the other famed New York attractions.

Scary, because there's n number of things that could go wrong, especially if you're traveling alone. There's the cabs, and rude New Yorkers, and the subway and getting lost, and bedbugs, genital herpes, and the sheer cost of staying in New York (avg. $277 per day), and... let's just say that there's all kinds of things waiting that could end up as a nightmare.

New York isn't about to become any friendlier anytime soon, but you can make it easy on yourself by getting to know the lay of the land, and planning ahead and being prepared. So, here's a few websites, which put together (if you take the trouble to go through them), will minimize the scary part, and ensure as safe and smooth a trip as possible.

Let's start with NYC's official tourism website - www.nycvisit.com/. Thankfully, this site is not at all like other tourism websites, which are shining examples of bureaucratic inefficiency. NYCVisit.com, on the other hand, is a shining example of how to run a City's tourism website like a well-oiled and profitable company. In fact, the organization's name is NYC & Company.

NYCVisit.com, all by itself, has more than enough to help you plan your entire trip, from your home to the airport to listings of New York hotels, green activities and organic restaurants, free things to do in New York, subway guides, local transportation, guided tour information, theater and show tickets, museum guides, family attractions, nightlife and anything else you can think of that can be done in New York.

NYCVisit.com's trip planning page has stunningly accurate information, updated by the minute, and offers in-depth guides, interactive maps for any type of activity or event for any of the five boroughs you choose.

Plus, they have these fantastic ongoing extras like the "Sunday Stays program", under which you get discount rates and add-ons at major hotels, and "Just Ask the Locals", where New York celebrities and famous personalities like actress Julianne Moore, NBC's Matt Lauer and Ivanka Trump, provide tips for dining, shopping, nightlife, arts and entertainment and New York life in general.

The New York Times Travel Guide for New York City:- The NYT's Travel section is probably one of the best online travel guides in the world. And when it comes to rounding up the best in New York City, the travel writers of the NYT take that much more effort, and it shows. If NYCVisit.com has the best info for trip planning, then the NYT guide is the perfect place to find and do all the things that New Yorkers enjoy.

Their best reviews are probably for the restaurants and the museums, which the NYT's writers can't seem to get enough of. There's information for hotels and sight seeing, of course, but the focus of the guide and the articles is basically on food and art.

People tend to ignore the value of youtube videos. Its not just about music and viral videos with millions of views, like the Battle at Kruger Park video or the Obama girl video. There's a tremendous amount of knowledge locked up in there, and if only you could sort through the maze and get the right videos, you probably wouldn't need anything else.

I mean, reading about the Greenwich Village or Central Park walking tours, or the Staten Island Ferry or a Circleline Manhattan cruise is fine, but if you can actually see it, then you know what it is, and what you're going to get. And that helps you decide if you want to do it, and how to go about it.

This becomes even more valuable when you're booking hotels or making dinner reservations at restaurants. Have you ever seen a hotel or restaurant website where the rooms didn't look fabulous and the food sumptous and the facilities all neat and clean? But that's not always the way it is. You don't have to take anyone's word. The reality can be seen on Youtube.

Only thing is, finding youtube videos depends on your entering the right keywords. Which means you need to know what you're looking for. So go through all the other sites, make note of the things you seem to like, and then search for related videos on Youtube. Makes it just about perfect.

The NYMag is where you get the latest. Fashion - what's in and what's out, new restaurant openings, which clubs are hot and which are not, and typical New York trash talk which gives you a fair idea of where New York is at.

And TimeOut New York will get you deep into what New Yorkers are doing, and where they're doing it, including dance, games, shopping, sports, spas, sex and dating.

TripAdvisor will give you the lowdown on the NYC hotels. Golden rule I follow is that you never book a hotel unless you check out the reviews on TripAdvisor. And here's a tip - Hotels for every city on TripAdvisor are ranked according to popularity. So what I do is start from the top (the most popular hotel), and go down the list until I find one which fits most, if not all, of my other needs (location, room rates, availability, amenities, specials, etc.).

For NYC restaurant reviews (real and accurate ones), try Chowhound and/or Yelp. My experience has been that this is where you find the real reviews. The other sites simply list a restaurant, and have a food critic's opinion. Only on Yelp and Chowhound will you find reviews on almost every worthwhile restaurant in every major city in the United States.

For tourism service provider listings (including Broadway theaters and pre theater dinner, car rentals, guided tours, shows and events) visit www.nyctourist.com/

I imagine you might also want to visit some attractions in the rest of NY state. The official tourism site for NY state is www.iloveny.com/