At week fourteen, we officially reached the halfway mark of our 50-state quest. We departed Pittsburgh and set out for New York City, with a one-day stop in Hershey, Pennsylvania in between.
Being my first time in NYC, we played the tourist game and saw all the popular sites — most of which were easy to see for free! Read on to find out more about our week in The Big Apple, plus our “sweet” stop in the Chocolate Capital of the U.S.
Note: I’m still catching up on our weekly road trip re-caps! This one covers August 9-15.
Read more about our favorite affordable accommodation option in “How to Find a Safe, Comfortable & Affordable Place to Stay on Airbnb.”
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You can get an overview of our trip each week here on the blog, but we’re posting more frequent updates of our cross-country U.S. road trip on Facebook and Instagram.
States Visited This Week
- Pennsylvania
- New Jersey*
- New York
*just passing through
States Visited in Previous Weeks
- Week One: California, Nevada, Arizona
- Week Two: Arizona, New Mexico, Texas
- Week Three: Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri
- Week Four – Six: Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota
- Week Seven: Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Alberta (Canada)
- Week Eight: North Dakota back to Chicago
- Week Nine – Twelve: Chicago & Oshkosh
- Week Thirteen: Chicago to Pittsburgh
Total States Visited So Far: 25 (HALFWAY THERE!)
California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York
Stops/Landmarks
- Hershey Chocolate World in Hershey, Pennsylvania
- New York City
- B & H Photo Superstore
- The Statue of Liberty
- Central Park
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- One World Trade Center
Did you know you can use a UPS store’s mailing address to receive stuff for a small fee? We did this as an alternative to using our Airbnb address.
Highlights
- Hershey Chocolate tour
- Diana’s first visit to NYC
- Exploring our local section of Brooklyn around our Airbnb
- Binge-watching Friends on Netflix while staying in New York City
- Having lunch with our contacts at B & H Photo and then touring the B & H Superstore
- Watching the turtles in Central Park
Notes and Insights
- Hershey’s Chocolate World is really not that exciting, but the actors who take you on the bus tour around Hershey were pretty entertaining, so that was worth the money. (The “tour” inside, which is really more of a theme park ride, is worth waiting in a short line for, too.)
- So much of NYC can be done for free! Check out our list of 10 Free Things to Do in New York City.
- Our Airbnb host in Marysville, Pennsylvania had the most interesting accent we’ve ever heard in the U.S. It sounded a bit like a Pittsburgh accent but was much trickier to understand!
Photo Gallery
All photos were taken by Ian and Diana with the Sony a7 II (Ian’s camera), Sony RX100 III (Diana’s camera — review here) and our smartphones.
Week 15 Preview
- Exploring the East Coast from Connecticut to Maine
- Milky Way photography in Cape Cod
- Authentic lobster rolls in New England
- Acadia National Park
- The easternmost point of the U.S. (and on into Canada on Campobello Island)
I hope you enjoyed this U.S. road trip re-cap! In case you missed them, check out our other weekly recaps from our road trip. Have you road-tripped to any of these U.S. locations? Tell us about your trips in the comments.
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