Joined Nov 2005
L10: Grand Master
Forum Thread
New Yorkers (NYC-ers), I have a travel question
July 13, 2022 at
06:50 AM
(I had to specify "NYC" as I am a New Yorker but not from NYC, but when you say "New Yorker" it's understood that person is from NYC)
Let me preface this by saying I currently live in central CT and have been to NYC a handful of times, so the process isn't entirely foreign to me but I'd like input.
We've been hosting an exchange student for a few weeks, taking him to the sights, etc, and on his last day (Friday) we plan to take him to NYC. He flies out of JFK @ appx 10pm on Friday.
My concern is how to manage the travel into the city and to/from JFK. He does have luggage, but only a backpack which he could wear the entire day, however if there are easy storage options available I'd be open to suggestions.
If not for hauling around foreigners to airports, our 2 usual methods would be:
- Driving. I hate doing this as it's a TOTAL crap shoot on if you get stuck in traffic for hours or not. But, it has the benefit that you can travel as you please, and it's probably cheaper than the other options.
- Metro North (New Haven) to Grand Central. The great things about this option are that these trains run all the time (frequently), and are largely reliable from a time of travel POV (1.5-2 hrs OW). This would be more expensive than driving, even if parking is crazy expensive.
The wrench in the above is dropping him off @ JFK. I anticipate with a 10pm flight we'd need to get him there around 7pm. If we drove into the city, we'd need to then drive out to JFK (again, traffic boogeyman). I've never taken public transit to JFK, but it seems one can take a combination of the metro/airtran or LIRR (from Penn)/airtran, with the LIRR option being quicker but also more expensive.
Besides time, the other benefit to the LIRR is it departs from Penn Station, which has inexpensive baggage storage.
Cost really isn't a terrible concern, I just don't want to waste hours sitting in a car in traffic when we don't really have much time to begin with in the city before we get him to the airport.
I am thinking the best public transit route would be an early MetroNorth train to Grand Central, go to Penn Station to drop off his bag, then do the city for the day, go back to Penn, pick up the bag, head out via LIRR (which also seem to run very frequently to Jamaica) to JFK, drop him off, then back to GC and eventually New Haven. The con to this is that there is a lot of time spent on trains and backtracking.
Another option would be to drive directly to JFK in the morning and park the car there for the day, leave his bag in the car, take the airtran/LIRR into the city, then reverse. The benefit to this is that it's probably somewhat safer from a traffic perspective than driving right into the city, but also makes for less back and forth overall. Parking @ JFK is probably quite a bit more expensive however. Driving back from JFK so late likely won't be much traffic if at all (there wasn't any when we picked him up), but the AM traffic might be bad.
Suggestions?
Let me preface this by saying I currently live in central CT and have been to NYC a handful of times, so the process isn't entirely foreign to me but I'd like input.
We've been hosting an exchange student for a few weeks, taking him to the sights, etc, and on his last day (Friday) we plan to take him to NYC. He flies out of JFK @ appx 10pm on Friday.
My concern is how to manage the travel into the city and to/from JFK. He does have luggage, but only a backpack which he could wear the entire day, however if there are easy storage options available I'd be open to suggestions.
If not for hauling around foreigners to airports, our 2 usual methods would be:
- Driving. I hate doing this as it's a TOTAL crap shoot on if you get stuck in traffic for hours or not. But, it has the benefit that you can travel as you please, and it's probably cheaper than the other options.
- Metro North (New Haven) to Grand Central. The great things about this option are that these trains run all the time (frequently), and are largely reliable from a time of travel POV (1.5-2 hrs OW). This would be more expensive than driving, even if parking is crazy expensive.
The wrench in the above is dropping him off @ JFK. I anticipate with a 10pm flight we'd need to get him there around 7pm. If we drove into the city, we'd need to then drive out to JFK (again, traffic boogeyman). I've never taken public transit to JFK, but it seems one can take a combination of the metro/airtran or LIRR (from Penn)/airtran, with the LIRR option being quicker but also more expensive.
Besides time, the other benefit to the LIRR is it departs from Penn Station, which has inexpensive baggage storage.
Cost really isn't a terrible concern, I just don't want to waste hours sitting in a car in traffic when we don't really have much time to begin with in the city before we get him to the airport.
I am thinking the best public transit route would be an early MetroNorth train to Grand Central, go to Penn Station to drop off his bag, then do the city for the day, go back to Penn, pick up the bag, head out via LIRR (which also seem to run very frequently to Jamaica) to JFK, drop him off, then back to GC and eventually New Haven. The con to this is that there is a lot of time spent on trains and backtracking.
Another option would be to drive directly to JFK in the morning and park the car there for the day, leave his bag in the car, take the airtran/LIRR into the city, then reverse. The benefit to this is that it's probably somewhat safer from a traffic perspective than driving right into the city, but also makes for less back and forth overall. Parking @ JFK is probably quite a bit more expensive however. Driving back from JFK so late likely won't be much traffic if at all (there wasn't any when we picked him up), but the AM traffic might be bad.
Suggestions?
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All but one of the LIRR lines pass through Jamaica so it shouldn't be too difficult to find a train stopping there (make sure to check because there do exist weeknight rush hour trains that bypass it). But you should not need to wait more than ~10 mins to get a LIRR train, and it's about 20 mins to Jamaica station.
An option you haven't explored though is to drive into a neighborhood in Queens and simply park there (pick somewhere central and near enough to a subway line, maybe Forest Hills?). It will be easier to drive, easier to park, easier to get around, there'll still be a little traffic at the end of the day getting to JFK but not nearly as much as driving through Manhattan.