New York and Los Angeles in 8 Days

USA · 8 days

Four days on foot and on the subway: Manhattan from the top and from the street, museums, bridges, and Brooklyn at golden hour.

Day by day

Day 1 · 6 placesLanding and a first night in Manhattan

JFK → Manhattan: AirTrain + subway, about an hour

Empire State Building
The 1931 skyscraper, the single most looked-up landmark in the city. Open until 2 a.m. — if the line is long by day, come late.
Times Square
Not the prettiest corner of New York, but on your first night it does the job: light, noise, and the feeling that you’ve arrived.
John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)
This is where you land. AirTrain to Jamaica, then the subway — about an hour to Midtown.
Chelsea Market
A cookie factory turned food hall: tacos, lobster rolls, Japanese counters. Easiest reached by walking down off the High Line.
Little Island
A park on concrete tulips standing in the river, opened in 2021. Small enough for half an hour, and the best sunset view on this side of town.
The High Line
A park built on an old elevated rail line: a mile and a half above the streets with the Hudson on one side.

Day 2 · 4 placesCentral Park and the museums

all day walking and on the subway

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Two million objects — you will not see them all. Pick the Egyptian wing and European painting, leave the rest for next time.
Central Park
Enter from the southeast and work north: the pond, Bethesda Terrace, the rowboats. On a bike you can cross the whole park in an hour.
Bethesda Terrace and Fountain
The park’s grand staircase, with a tiled ceiling underneath and an angel over the fountain. Rowboats leave from the lake below.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Frank Lloyd Wright’s spiral: you walk down the ramp from the top, and the building holds up better than half the art. Closed Mondays.

Day 3 · 5 placesDowntown, the bridge, and Brooklyn

walk the bridge, ride back

Brooklyn Bridge
Walk it from Brooklyn toward Manhattan: the skyline grows in front of you. Before nine the boards are almost empty.
Charging Bull · Wall Street
The bronze bull someone installed overnight without asking in 1989, with the Exchange two blocks away. Twenty minutes is plenty.
DUMBO
The shot everyone knows — the bridge framed by the street. The waterfront, a carousel, and the best view of Manhattan are all right there.
9/11 Memorial & Museum
Two pools where the towers stood, and the museum beneath them. Give it 90 minutes and don’t schedule anything loud for that evening.
One World Observatory
The 102nd floor of the tallest building in the western hemisphere. The elevator takes 47 seconds and shows you 500 years of the city growing.

Day 4 · 8 placesMidtown from above, Broadway at night

everything within walking distance, theater in the evening

The Museum of Modern Art
Van Gogh, Matisse, and Warhol fifteen minutes from Central Park. Friday evenings are sometimes free.
SUMMIT One Vanderbilt
A mirrored observation deck straight above Grand Central. Timed tickets; the best slot is an hour before sunset.
Grand Central Terminal
A 1913 terminal with a green sky painted on the ceiling. Downstairs, an oyster bar that has been open a hundred years.
New York Public Library
Two stone lions out front and a reading room the size of a football field. Walk in free; twenty minutes is enough.
Bryant Park
A green square behind the library with café tables and a carousel — where Midtown sits down for a minute. In winter it’s an ice rink and a holiday market.
Fifth Avenue
The walking street: windows, department stores, sidewalk carts, crowds. Start at 59th and head down — the big stores line up along the way.

Day 5 · 3 placesFly to Los Angeles

JFK → LAX, 6 hours in the air, 3 hours back on the clock · evening by the water

Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
You land here from New York and pick up the car in the same building: in Los Angeles you cannot walk the distances.
Manhattan Beach Pier
A quiet pier ten minutes from the airport with a small aquarium at the end. Easy to fit into an arrival or departure day.
Venice Beach Boardwalk
A boardwalk of street performers and a skate park, with the canals two blocks inland — almost nobody knows about those.

Day 7 · 5 placesOcean, canals, and the Getty

water in the morning, the hilltop museum after lunch

Getty Center
A white museum on a ridge you reach by its own tram. Admission is free, only parking is paid, and the gardens and the ocean view are worth the drive on their own.
Santa Monica Pier
A pier with a Ferris wheel and the end of Route 66. The beach bike path runs from here down the whole coast.
Venice Canals
Real canals with footbridges two blocks off the loud boardwalk — dug in 1905 in imitation of Venice. Almost nobody finds them.
Third Street Promenade
Three car-free blocks a minute from the pier: shops, street musicians, and topiary dinosaurs. Where Santa Monica eats dinner and wanders.
Abbot Kinney Boulevard
A street of small labels, coffee bars, and food trucks — the California version of a shopping street. Friday nights the trucks show up in force.

Day 6 · 6 placesMuseums, Rodeo Drive, and Hollywood

museums to Hollywood, the observatory at dusk

Hollywood Walk of Fame
Stars in the sidewalk and the Chinese Theatre. Twenty minutes covers it — the hills above are more interesting.
Griffith Observatory
An observatory on the hill: the city on one side, the Hollywood Sign on the other. Free to go in, paid to park.
La Brea Tar Pits
Tar pools in the middle of the city that swallowed mammoths and saber-toothed cats for forty thousand years. You can watch the bubbles from outside for free. The museum itself closed on 7 July 2026 for a renovation running to 2028 — the pits, the park and the open-air dig are open as usual.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The largest art museum in the western United States. Out front stands “Urban Light,” 202 restored street lamps and the most photographed spot in town.
Rodeo Drive
Three blocks of windows in Beverly Hills — the street from “Pretty Woman.” Looking is free, and half the people there are doing exactly that.
TCL Chinese Theatre
A 1927 movie palace built like a Chinese temple, with handprints and footprints pressed into the forecourt concrete. Premieres still happen here.

Day 8 · 3 placesMalibu, then the flight home

Malibu → LAX, 1 hour · drop the car at the airport

Malibu · El Matador State Beach
Sea stacks and arches standing in the water, an hour up the coast highway. The stairs down are steep but short.
Malibu Pier
A wooden pier from 1905 halfway to the Malibu cliffs: coffee, surfers below, and the whole bay in front of you.
Point Dume
A headland above Malibu: whales pass below in winter and sea lions haul out on the rocks. Ten minutes up the trail.