What a week in New York really costs

Prices collected 19 October 2026 for travel 3 Dec–10 Dec 2026 · one traveller · 7 nights · EUR

New York inverts the usual shape of a city budget. The flight is famously the hard part, at €747 median from Lisbon and more from São Paulo, yet the fares we found sit in a narrow band, so the ticket is about when you book, not which day you fly. It is the ground that decides your total, and one line of it in particular.

Sightseeing runs €160 a day in our data, the highest figure in this batch by a wide margin. The reason is structural: New York charges for its views and its museums one at a time, and the tickets add up the way theatre tickets do. Pick the two you care about, an observatory or the Met, the Statue or a Broadway seat, and let the free list (the bridges, the parks, the ferry) carry the rest of the week.

Food is more forgiving than the city's reputation: €77 a day at mid-range, with the budget tier built on diners, delis and slice shops that genuinely feed a person for pocket money. Transport is a flat €44, since the metro does not care where you are going. That leaves the fare and the sightseeing list as the only two numbers worth agonising over.

Flights

Round trip, one traveller, 3 Dec–10 Dec 2026. The median is what most searches see; a quote below it is a good buy, one far above it is worth re-dating.

Hotels

Nightly rates across 20 quotes for your dates, central locations included:

Per night, before city taxes. The cheapest quote is often a location you wouldn’t pick twice, so weight the median.

Food

Per person, per day, in New York:

Sightseeing and getting around

What the popularity rankings put at the top right now: Statue of Liberty, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Museum of Natural History, Guggenheim Museum, Ellis Island, Greenwich Village.

What a week adds up to

Excludes travel insurance, airport transfers, visas and checked bags on restricted fares.