What does it take to get to know a city? Especially one as jam-packed and bedazzling as New York? And then add to that the slight panic of being a first-timer and wanting to take it in all at once. All of it…

Last week’s trip to New York was an incredible experience – not least the mental assimilating I couldn’t stop myself from doing with the New York of books I’ve read and movies I’ve seen. All through my three-day trip, I kept noticing and storing away visual snaps in my head that resonated heavily with the city I felt, on one level, I already knew. Add to that the bazillions of actual photographs I took along the way…

Thanks to the Conrad team and their dynamic and super in-the-know Director of Inspiration (dream title, right?) Nilou Motamed I got off to a good start. Picked from their new Stay Inspired (check this hashtag on Insta) 1-3-5 menu of things to do (activities and experiences tailored to 1,3 or 5 hours slots, all listed in the Conrad app), the Highline walk – 1.45. miles long, open 7-7 – was right up my street. Or make that disused freight railway! Elevated above the street, the walk – runs through Chelsea to the Meat Packing District (new home to the Whitney Museum, which we visited afterwards) – is ideal for getting a feel for how the city is put together. And there’s lots of leafy green too, a homage to the vegetation that would have grown before the railway was built – always a nice surprise in a built-up city.

And I also did the other best thing you can do to get to know a city; talk to a local. My local came in the form of extremely exuberant and super-fun blogger & You Tuber Justin. Getting his story, how and why he’d moved to the city for his first job, where he liked to eat and shop was just the info-layering I’d needed to start building up a picture and understanding of a city.

So this was where I started with New York, a big thankyou to Nilou, Justin and the Conrad team. I also did it in a very un-New Yorker post-box red coat – flying the flag for some British fashion in the form of Boden Icons as I wound my way through an eye-opening part of the city…

A big thankyou to Conrad New York for hosting me on this amazing trip to New York. 

Photos by myself and Justin on Olympus Pen E-PL7 with Olympus 17mm 1.8 and Panasonic 25mm 1.4 lens.