Hello friends, it’s surely been a while! A lot has happened since I’ve last written a post: my travel style changed, I began learning Spanish, got a new tattoo, started to drive more often, filled my house with plants, saw Taylor Swift live in concert, and above all, visited some amazing destinations that I didn’t think it would be possible before the pandemic. However, there was one trip that I had planned for 2020 and I’ve been trying to make it happen ever since: the trip to New York. It finally became a reality this year and, as I would find out, it happened at the right time.

Let me walk you through a little back story. Around the end of 2019 we were discussing about traveling to New York, I remember we were in Milan, a few days before New Year’s Eve, and we kept seeing ads in the subway for visiting New York. We made an itinerary and bought the plane tickets in January 2020 for June, booked hotels and even tickets to a Broadway play and a music festival. Then in March, the world had shut down for a while. Naively, I would think that it will be over quickly, but it obviously didn’t so the flights were canceled, we received a voucher and a year later, we would book flight tickets for September 2021. Surprise again, USA still hadn’t lifted the travel ban so voucher it was again.

By June 2022, we would surely be able to go, right? Wrong! Two friends had decided to join us and they didn’t have a visa. Sounds easy enough, go to the embassy and get a visa, right? Wrong again! Because of the (still!) ongoing war in Ukraine, the embassy was closed and they weren’t accepting visa applications. No voucher this time, we changed the destination for the lovely Caribbean, but that’s a story for another day.

Finally (FINALLY!) it became a reality in June 2023 and let me tell you I was nervous something would happen up until I passed through customs at JFK. 😅 Not normal behavior, I know, but can you blame me? The planned trip had many forms and durations over the years, but the one that happened was definitely the best. Mostly because it happened. 😉

Between walking up at 6 AM on the first day to catching an early train to Washington DC on the last morning, we had walked over 100 km, seen all the sights and ticked all the boxes of things we wanted to do for over three years. We truly loved every single moment and it almost felt like a dream. As I said in the beginning, I truly felt that this trip happened when it was its right time, if it had happened back in 2020, we wouldn’t have gone to the concerts we did, see the plays that we did or even go to the same restaurants or walk as much. I’ll admit, I truly was disappointed with each cancellation, but in hindsight, I wouldn’t change a thing. Yeah, it would have sucked and I wouldn’t have believed it if someone had told me “that thing that you really want would happen in three years time instead of now”, but it was well worth the wait.

So I’ll continue with a gallery of images from our trip to New York with a few thoughts scattered throughout. Hope you like it!

Would you be interested in reading more about our adventures in New York (and other American cities as well) ?