Fantastic atmosphere, friendly people (well, compared to London anyway) and with the current exchange rates it's so cheap.

Shopping on in NYC is pretty cheap but if you want brands at even better prices, get to the Port Authority 2nd floor north wing (that's 1st floor to UK types) and find the Short Line bus ticket office. Ask for a ticket to Woodbury Common - I think the cost was about $30 return - this includes a book of discount vouchers which are quite useful. The bus takes you to a factory outlet type of place with more designer names than you can shake a stick at, with some great bargains - take an empty suitcase with you ;o) The journey is about an hour long as the outlet is in New Jersey. Here's a link which might be useful: http://www.newyorkpass.com/ViewAttr...CategoryId=6
If you like big buildings you'll love downtown Manhattan - absolutely fantastic just wandering around looking at them and soaking up the atmosphere.

By foot, navigation is simple as most of the town is based on the grid system - it only deviates from this once you get below 13th Street and into Greenwich Village where a street map is very helpful.

Getting around by metro is pretty easy once you make sense of it. It's very safe to use during the day at least, I didn't risk it after dark. The knack is to decide whether the train you want is "express" or not. e.g. the "A" train can be "local" or "express" at different times of the day - the same train that dropped you halfway down Central Park West at 1pm could well whizz past, next stop The Bronx at 5pm so watch out.

If you can't face walking or metro there's always the Taxis. I was staying in "Upper West Side" which is towards the top end of Central Park. A taxi downtown cost around $15 - $18 - less than ten quid!

The Empire State building is a must see. You can either go to the first stage or pay extra to go to the top. The top is pretty cramped and you can't go outside so it's peering through perspex with graffiti scratched on it - not very good for photos. On the other hand you can see a bit further and you can say you've been up to the top of it.

By the time I got round to visiting the Statue of Liberty, they'd closed the excursion which allows you to get off onto the Island so I just did the bay tour. To be honest, you can get all the pics you want from the bay tour and it gets close enough so you can see pretty good detail so I didn't bother going back the next day.

The UN is worth a visit if you're into that sort of thing. There's a small exhibition inside and a guided tour on some days - I didn't bother with the tour but was nice to have my pic taken by the cracked Earth and the gun with a knot in it :o) The exhibition is interesting but quite depressing as it's largely about war, famine, genocide - nice light topics like that ;o)

I can't say I was particularly impressed by the food. I think this is largely because I didn't know anything about the restaurants there so mostly plumped for a diner which looked ok. You get plenty of it but it's not really what you'd call haute cuisine - steak & chips about tops the bill I'd say. If you're a foodie, it's probably worth doing some research before you go.