With so much to see and do in New York City, many visitors come to realize that they need a little help organizing their adventures, so as to maximize their Big Apple experience by exploring as much as possible in the time available to them. As a result, they opt for a guided tour, and one of the most popular types of guided tours in New York City, year after year, is the bus tour. As a visitor to New York City, you’ll encounter numerous bus tours in a range of styles at a variety of price points. Regardless of what you’re looking for in a bus tour, though, it’s probably out there.
It’s hard to beat a classic sightseeing tour, and New York City has plenty of those to offer you. The key first step to determining which of New York’s many sightseeing bus tours is right for you is deciding what parts of the city you want to see. Many sightseeing bus tours focus on Manhattan, and typically these bus tours of Manhattan cover Uptown or Downtown (though ambitious sightseers might be interested in a longer, more elaborate bus tour that combines both Uptown and Downtown outings into one excursion). Other sightseeing bus tours focus on Brooklyn, taking you past its many landmarks, attractions, and claims to fame.
Some New York City bus tours let you hop-on and hop-off at a number of destinations, and this is a great perk: it’s a way in which a guided bus tour can also function as a form of transportation, getting you hassle-free to the attractions you want to visit firsthand. New York City is likewise home to a remarkable assortment of guided bus tours that focus on a specific set of interests and themes. These include bus tours that take you on a deep dive through specific neighborhoods; bus tours that focus on food, letting you experience a slice of New York City’s many celebrated cuisines; bus tours that run only at night, showing you a whole different side of the city that is said to never sleep; and bus tours that carry you around town to all the different sites where famous New York-centric movies were filmed.
Here are some of New York’s most popular bus tour operators, plus a little additional background information on each one.
On Location Tours, New York
The Ride, NYC Bus Experience
Big Bus Tours NYC
