January 9th to January 17th, 2018
This note is part of my travel series, Giant Leaps: a collection of my experiences from across the globe. You can view all of my trips on here.
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What I Did:
- I spent a week to NYC on my way to Barcelona and I was really happy that I did. NYC is one of my favorite places in the world, there is such an incredible amount of energy and action that you will not find anywhere else. I was lucky to be able to crash on a friend’s couch for 8 days, and got to do a lot of exploring on my own.
- New York was cold and snowy throughout my trip. This was my first “extended stay” in NY during the winter so it was very cool to see the city covered in white. I stayed in Little Italy…overall super close to restaurants and lots of things to do. I was super grateful for my host Jeremy, he is a world-class adventurer. We walked around the city a ton…literally 12-15 miles a day worth of walking (probably the most I had ever done for a consistent amount of time). Jeremy also got me into his WeWork space so I was able to work a lot (maybe 5-6 hours a day). It was a good balance of working hard and seeing new things.
- It is hard to describe NY with words other than massive. Having lived in SF for the past 3 summers, I got used to relatively small, dirty, quiet cities. NY is huge! And there is so much going on. And there is so much open late at night.
- In my opinion, after having traveled to several of the world’s largest places, NYC has the best food in the world. Call it controversial, but my opinion is that NYC beats out everywhere else I have been. NYC simply has the most diverse array of high quality authentic foods. I ate a lot of food on this trip, from Dollar Pizza to really good Pho to Dim Sum. SO much going on!
- A fun part of visiting NYC was being able to catch up with friends that I had not seen for a while. There are so so many awesome people working at the intersection of so many awesome things that gives you such good energy!
Takeaways:
- NY has a very very different vibe from SF. In most ways, I would say it is a better “vibe” for my taste, more to do, more culture, more everything really. They are of course missing a feeling of ambition that I think really only exists in the Bay Area (hope that will change).
- NY is a reminder that the world is big and you are small. It is a humbling and in my mind comforting feeling that the world will continue to spin at a million miles an hour with or without your presence.
Also published on Medium.